Ian Gardiner, BMus, MA

Ian Gardiner’s creative work spans contemporary concert composition, studio arranging and orchestration, music for film and TV, and collaborations with pop, jazz and world musicians. As a composer he has received major international and national awards, including a Prix Italia and Sony Award for his work for radio, Monument, and a British Composer Award for Toccata, Canzona, Ricercare for symphonic wind and brass. In 2012 his piece for solo bass clarinet and ensemble, spinning and weaving, was also shortlisted for a British Composer Award in the chamber music category. He has worked regularly with major British orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC Concert Orchestra and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and contemporary music groups such as Ensemble 10/10, the Nieuw Ensemble, and Trio Phoenix. He has also written for soloists including John Harle, Andrew Zolinsky, Sir Willard W.White,  Peter Donohoe, and Dame Evelyn Glennie. For eight years he directed and played percussion in the idiosyncratic new music group George W Welch, for whom he wrote many pieces and transcriptions. In 2011 he recycled Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture for an orchestra of instruments made out of scrap materials, performed in the Royal Albert Hall at the BBC Proms, for the BBC4 TV documentary Scrapheap Orchestra.

As an orchestral arranger, he has collaborated on projects with Toumani Diabaté, Goldfrapp, Hiba al-Kawas, Adrian Utley, OMD, and recently worked with the Frank Zappa Family Trust on new Zappa arrangements for rock band with contemporary classical ensemble. He also transcribed and arranged an evening of music by ‘Supermarionation’ composer Barry Gray, premiered at Glastonbury in 2014, and reconstructed Basil Kirchin’s Quantum for a live performance in the Hull City of Culture Festival in 2017. As an orchestrator he has scored on concert and TV/film projects for Will Gregory, Jocelyn Pook and John Harle.

He has a key interest in the composition of new music for silent film, having created new scores for the expressionist classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Hans Richter’s Vormittagsspuk, and Joseph Cornell’s montage movie Rose Hobart. His scholarly research also lies in the analysis of music and sound in film and television, with a strong interest in music in British cinema. He co-founded the journal ‘Music, Sound and the Moving Image' (Liverpool University Press) with Anahid Kassabian in 2006, and is currently co-editor alongside Helen Hanson and Jay Beck.

Prior to Goldsmiths, he taught at the University of Liverpool and also helped establish an innovative programme in popular music at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. He is and has been external examiner for a number of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes at universities in the UK and abroad, as well as regularly examining PhDs in contemporary composition. He has also acted as a composition mentor for Sound and Music. Keenly involved in the performance culture within Goldsmiths’ music department, he has directed and written for Goldsmiths Contemporary Music Ensemble, arranged for the Creative Jazz Ensemble, and is currently a conductor of Goldsmiths Sinfonia, devising innovative programmes of mostly 20th-century and contemporary music.

From 2015-2018 he was Head of Music at Goldsmiths.

Undergraduate: Composition; Media Composition; Creative Orchestration and Arrangement; Creative Research Project; Research Essay. 

Postgraduate: Composition and Moving Image Media; Material, Form and Structure; Creative Project.

Areas of supervision

Music, sound, and the moving image; orchestration, adaptation and arrangement; contemporary composition

Current research students:
Alexis Bennett – British Film Music in the 1930s
Elfyn Jones – contemporary opera composition

Christopher Crawley – concert composition

Recent work

2019

The Late Show - version for six pianos or for two pianos, eight hands

2018

Rictus 93 – concert work for 11 players

3 Berceuses Automatiques – for solo piano

Berceuse Automatique Nº.1 – for percussion quartet

45RPM – for orchestra

(as arranger) Swifty, T’Mershi & Dupree, Medley from ‘Make A Jazz Noise Here’, Medley from Studio Z, Igor’s/Exercise/Meat and Alien Orifice (music by Frank Zappa) for 15-piece ensemble. Performance: Clark Rundell and RNCM Ensemble, Royal Northern College of Music, 30 November 2018

(as arranger) Soledad / Michelangelo 70 (music by Astor Piazzolla) for orchestra. Performance: Bristol Symphony Orchestra, cond. William Goodchild, 23 June 2018.

2017

(as arranger) Quantum (music by Basil Kirchin) for voice, recordings of found sounds, and chamber orchestra. Performance: BBC Concert Orchestra, cond. Clark Rundell, 19 February 2017 (Radio 3 tx. 4 March 2017).

2014

(as arranger) 10 Supermarionation soundtracks (music by Barry Gray), Charles Hazlewood Allstars, cond. Charles Hazlewood, Park Stage, Glastonbury Festival, 29 June 2014

(as orchestrator) Dust (music by Jocelyn Pook), choreography by Akram Khan, English National Ballet, Barbican Theatre, 2 April 2014

2013

Orchestration: In the Tube at Oxford Circus (Sir Arthur Bliss), Goldsmiths Sinfonia, Great Hall, Goldsmiths, 4 October 2013 

(as orchestrator) Sarabande (Will Gregory), BBC Concert Orchestra, cond. Charles Hazlewood, Roundhouse, London, 11 March 2013 (BBC Radio 3 tx: 11/3/13)

2012

(as orchestrator) Hearing Voices (Jocelyn Pook), BBC Concert Orchestra, cond, Charles Hazlewood, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, 3 December 2012 (BBC Radio tx: 3/12/12)

putting two and two together, Andrew Zolinsky (piano), Purcell Room, London, 11 May 2012

L’escalier en spirale, RNCM New Music Ensemble, cond. Andrew Gregory, Martin Harris Centre, Manchester, 7 March 2012

spinning and weaving, Katherine Lacy (solo bass clarinet), Ensemble 10/10, cond, Clark Rundell, Cornerstone, Liverpool, 25 January 2012

2011

Adaptation: The Year 1812 (Tchaikovsky), ‘Scrapheap Orchestra’ (BBC Concert Orchestra), cond. Charles Hazlewood, BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall, 23 July  2011 (BBC Radio 3 tx: 23/7/11)

(as orchestrator) Piccard in Space (Will Gregory), BBC Concert Orchestra, cond. Charles Hazlewood, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, 31 March 2011 (BBC Radio 3 tx: 13/4/11)

(as orchestrator) Polar (John Harle), Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, cond. John Harle, Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool, 9 January 9 2011

2010

(as orchestrator) The Passion of Joan of Arc (film by Carl Dreyer; music by Will Gregory & Adrian Utley, ensemble cond. Charles Hazlewood, Colston Hall, Bristol, 2 May 2010

Toccata, Canzona, Ricercare, Trinity College of Music Wind Orchestra, cond. Christopher Houlding, Blackheath Concert Halls, 28 January 2010

2009

Adaptation: Kaira (trad. Mandinka melody), Manchester Camerata, cond. Jaime Martin, Royal Northern College of Music, 26 September 2009

listen…move…dance, Carlo Bowry (electric guitar), Ensemble 10/10, cond. Clark Rundell, Cornerstone, Liverpool, 6 March 2009

2008

Adaptation: Araftu Beirut / Lianni Ahiya (Hiba Al-Kawas), Hiba Al-Kawas, Nieuw Ensemble, cond. Garry Walker, Cadogan Hall, 19 June 2008 (BBC Radio tx: 4/10/08)

2007

L’escalier en spirale, Ensemble 10/10, cond. Clark Rundell, Cornerstone, Liverpool, 21 November 2007 (BBC Radio 3 tx. 8/12/2007)

Conferences

‘Coming Thro’ the Rye: a realisation of the compilation score for Cecil Hepworth’s 1928 film’, The Sounds of Early Cinema in Britain, Royal Holloway, University of London, 27 October 2010 

‘Scores in Early Sound Film as Sources for Silent Film Accompaniment Practices’, The Sounds of Early Cinema in Britain, Institute of Musical Research, London, 7-9 June 2009

Television and video output

(as orchestrator) Serengeti (music by Will Gregory), BBC Concert Orchestra, BBC1, tx. early 2019

(as orchestrator) Snow Bears (music by Will Gregory), BBC Concert Orchestra, BBC1, tx. 26 December 2017

(as orchestrator) Pets - Wild at Heart (music by Will Gregory), BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC1, tx. 21 January 2015

(as orchestrator) Hockney (music by John Harle), documentary feature film, Blakeway Productions/Fly Film Company, released 28 November 2014

(as orchestrator) Penguins – Spy in the Huddle (music by Will Gregory), BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC1, tx. 11–25/2/2013

(as orchestrator) Lucian Freud – A Painted Life (music by John Harle), BBC2, tx. 18/2/12. (Winner of Royal Television Society Award, 2012, ‘Music: Original Score)

(as orchestrator) Earthflight (music by Will Gregory & Steven Faux), BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC1, tx. 29/12/11 – 29/1/12

Contributor, Consultant, Arranger, Scrapheap Orchestra, BBC4, tx. 15 December, 2011

(as orchestrator)  Swarms: Nature’s Incredible Invasions (music by Will Gregory). BBC1, tx. 4 - 11/1/09