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  Jeroen at   S A M

Jeroen Speak received undergraduate training in New Zealand. With the aid of the William Georgetti and Herbert Sutcliffe scholarships he was able to complete a masters degree at Victoria University. where he graduated in 1993. In 1994 he was the Composer in Residence at the Nelson School of Music before immigrating to Britain where he completed a D Phil at Sussex University under Michael Finnissy in 2003. He has also received tuition from Sir Harrison Birtwistle, and Jonathan Harvey.

  Speak has been recently featured at; the Huddersfield Festival (UK), ISCM World Music Days, the Gaudeamus, and the Asian Composers League Festivals, Darmstadt, and many other European and worldwide music festivals. His work 'Arabesques' for Violin and Piano was Shortlisted in 2002 by the SPNM, and subsiquently performed by ensemble Lontano (the Purcell Room (Southbank, London)), and broadcast on BBC's 'Here and Now'. His related work Tarantelle (for solo cello) was premiered by Arne De force at the Huddersfield Music Festival the following year.

  In 2004 Speak was awarded a Fellowship by the British Council to work in Taiwan where he lectured, and organised workshops and performances of British music, this was the basis for an ongoing collaboration with the Taiwan-based ' Forum Music', a collaboration involving both educational and cultural elements which culminated in the CD release of 'GuTa' and 'Architecture of Time' (Musical Kaleidoscope: Taiwan's Contemporary Music. CO004, Forum Music).

  In 2005 Speak was offered a further fellowship to work and research in Shanghai (China). His current compositional interests include new approaches to contemporary notation, instrumentation, and tonality. His research in China revolved around modern and classical aspects Chinese culture and aesthetics, including ancient Chinese music notation systems, aiming towards the creation of a body of new work. To that end, In 2006 he was commissioned by the ISCM ensemble in residence Ensemble Antipodes to write an octet ('Silk Dialogue V') which was premièred at the ISCM World Music Days Stuttgart (2006),and also in the Gaudiamus Festival in The Netherlands. His work 'The Character of Time' was premièred in the same year at Darmstadt by Nicolas Hodges, and his percussion work 'GuTa' was premièred (and consequentially released on CD) by the Forum Music Ensemble (Taiwan). In 2008 his piano trio ('Lingua e Realidade') commissioned by the UK-based group Lontano was premièred in April in the Purcell Room (London,UK). In August 2009 his work 'Silk Dialogue VI' for mixed ensemble, was commissioned and premiered by the Elision ensemble (Australia) at the Iwaki auditorium, Melbourne, August 2009 (broadcast by ABC Classic FM).

   More recently his percussion music has been toured in France, and the New Zealand Premier of Silk Dialogue VI took place in Wellington (NZ) 2010 by Stroma. In 2011 Richard Haynes toured a new Bass Clarinet version of 'Epeisodos' (Hong Kong and Huddersfield (UK)). The world pemiere of his 'Percussion Concerto' is expected in April 2012 (Taipei), and the premier of his new trio 'Molto Intimo' is anticipated in Australia by the Elision ensemble (TBA).