ANDREW ROBERT GLOVER-WHITLEY
BIOGRAPHY
Glover-Whitley was born in Birmingham, UK in 1962. He studied art and music gaining his BA (hons) in Creative Arts in 1984 along with a performance diploma from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama on the flute. For a number of years he worked in the record industry and studied privately for two years with Keith Gifford. In 1993 he graduated from Keele University, Staffordshire with a PhD (Doctorate) in music composition by research having studied with Dr George Nicholson.
Many critics, have described his music as tough, terse and very sinewy, “like a thousand bolts of lightning in one blast”, by another. Glover-Whitley considers himself to be a rather conservative composer whose roots lie in Celtic/English folk music of his native lands and the heavy rock and metal music of his native city of Birmingham. Although these have little influence on his art music, elements of English/Celtic melody and hard rock dogma are sometimes evident in the driving rhythms and motivic melodic cells. His main influences are to be found in the modernism and experimental avant-garde of the 1950’s to the 1980’s. Although this is now considered as old fashioned, along with many other experimentalists and modernists, Glover-Whitley continues; despite being out of cinq with fashionable British banalism and pseudo Post Modernist thought, to write an uncompromising individual music that is instantly recognisable as him but also very accessible to the concert going public.
He worked until January 2014 as a visiting tutor in composition at Birmingham Conservatoire of Music, England, UK and as a freelance composer and semi-professional performer. He was from October 2012 a tutor with the Open College of Arts (OCA) as a Composition and Music History tutor and since 2016 he has been co-director of the International Academy of Music, an online advanced music college offering advanced Composition and music History courses for 18+ students of all ages.
He has had performances by the Hanson Quartet, Singcircle, Andrew Ball, Gabriel Keen, Pablo Diemecke, Asako Arai, Linda Hirst, James Wood, Alison Wells, Guildhall New Music Ensemble, Quintetto Des Alientos de la Ciudad de Mexico, English Northern Philharmonic Orchestra under Paul Daniel, The BBC Symphony Orchestra under Martyn Brabbins, The Latin American String Quartet, Dutch Radio Chamber Orchestra under Peter Eotvos, Noszferatu, Carlos Chavez Symphony Orchestra under Juan Carlos Lomonaco, North West German Radio Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, Saabruken Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra with Mieko Kanno under Grant Llewellyn, Marek Orszulik, Mexican National Symphony Orchestra, Baiba Oshina, Charles Matthews, Caroline Jones amongst others.
He has been broadcast in Britain, Netherlands, USA, Canada and Eastern Europe and has been shortlisted in many national and international competitions. His music has been performed in countries as far apart as Mexico, Russia, Israel and many others. In 1995 he won the inaugural “B.Morris Foundation Prize” in the USA for his work ‘The Bloodied Moon’. He was shortlisted in the Lutoslowski Prize in Poland for his orchestral work ‘Fractured Vistas’ in 1996/7. His chamber work ‘Bloodied Moon’ in 1997 came second in the “Maninni Prize” in Italy. In 2007 he won the Presidents Promotional Prize of the Brandenburg Composition Competition in Germany for his work for Baglama and Ensemble “Reasons of Darkness, Excuses of Light”. His work “A Night Walk Through Mexico City: Or How To Scare The Hell Out Of Yourself” came second in the third Xicoatl Competition in Salzburg, Austria, in early 2009. Other works have been placed in other competitions throughout the world.
His music is published by Jaguar Press with some being self published and are available from the composer (see contact page and scores/CD's for sale) or on loan from the Music Department of Birmingham Central Library, UK, or accessible from the Gaudeamus Foundation in Amsterdam, Netherlands and the Fundacio ACA, Son Bili, Buger, Mallorca, Espana. Some of Glover- Whitley’s works are available on Compact Disc direct from this site or through the organisations mentioned above.
For the college that Glover-Whitley is co-director of then please copy and past into a new window:
http://iam-education.com/ (please copy and paste in a new page)