tim ellis

I was born 1954 and spent most of my early life in Singapore, Hong Kong, Aden and in various places in the UK. The family settled down a bit after that! I studied at the Royal Northern College of Music with Anthony Gilbert (to whom I owe a huge debt of thanks for my technical ability) and Peter Maxwell Davies (who made me appreciate that most easy sounding things are the hardest work!). Since then I have written music on and off. I now prefer to write mainly using motivic/serial techniques, or motif/series derived (not necessarily all 12 notes and I am not a total serialist). I also use the row as a matrix. It creates interesting correspondences similar to magic squares (as in Max's music).

Having looked at my past compositions I am interested to find that although the sound world may be different my preoccupations are still the same. I am a believer in extended tonality, so although there may be a sense of key in any piece a key signature is superfluous as the music never settles long enough in one place to make a key signature helpful.

Favourite composers include Berg, Birtwistle, Boulez, Britten, Feldman, Herrmann (yes, the film composer), Lutyens, Messiaen, Stravinsky, Tallis, Tippett, Var�se, Vivaldi, Webern. I am a francophile in music, wine, food and culture. I also am very attracted to the orient. In 1998 I heard my first live Gamelan in Bali. I have always loved the sound but you have to hear it played in a temple, that is sensational. My website is always developing, sometimes more so than others. It wil have more information than here. Please visit it and let me have your feedback.

I also am an enthusiastic photographer using "Joiners" (as created by David Hockney) and have my own web site for this as well.

If you are interested in a score and parts please let me know. If it is not for free, I am sure we can come to an amicable arrangement (I am open to bribery and ego massage!). I will be happy to let you have copies of my scores for study or if there is a definite performance in prospect, in which case parts will also be available free of charge.

My best piece to date, "lagoon pieces ii" was performed by Peter Donahoe at a composers' workshop at the Frome Festival on 10 July 2006.