Deborah Pritchard facts for kids
Deborah Pritchard is a British composer. She writes music for orchestras and other groups. Her music is special because she has synaesthesia, which means she sees sounds as colors. She also creates music inspired by paintings and artists like Maggi Hambling and Marc Chagall. Deborah also paints her music as visual art or "music maps."
Some of her important pieces include The Angel Standing in the Sun, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra in 2015. Her violin concerto Calandra was played by Jennifer Pike and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 2022. She won a British Composer Award in 2017 for her solo violin piece Inside Colour.
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Learning About Music
Deborah Pritchard studied music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. There, she learned to be both a composer and a double bass player. She then earned another degree in composition from the Royal Academy of Music. Later, she completed her highest degree, a DPhil, at Worcester College, Oxford. She is now connected to the music faculty at Oxford. In 2019, she became an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music.
Her Musical Journey
Deborah's music first gained attention in 2001. Her piece Chanctonbury Ring was featured on an album called "The Hoxton Thirteen." Since then, her music has been released by many record labels.
Many famous groups and orchestras have performed her music around the world. These include the BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, and Philharmonia Orchestra. Choirs like the BBC Singers and the Choir of New College, Oxford have also performed her works.
Recently, her large piece for choir and orchestra, Kandinsky Songs, was performed in China in 2024. Her new song Everyone Sang was premiered at the Wigmore Hall in 2023. Also, Chagall's Light, inspired by Marc Chagall's windows, was performed in 2023.
Deborah was a special composer at the 2016 Lichfield Festival. She was also the composer in residence at the 2022 Purbeck International Chamber Music Festival.
Seeing Music in Color
Deborah experiences synaesthesia. This means she sees sounds as colors, light, and darkness. She explains that since she was a child, some musical harmonies felt warm, while others felt cold. The connection between colors and musical intervals felt very natural to her. When she uses color and light in her music, she feels a deeper emotion. She hopes to show a kind of beauty to the listener.
Deborah often paints pictures of her music. She also creates "music maps" for other composers' works. These maps help people understand the music better. Her paintings and music maps were shown at the Royal Academy of Music's "Amazing Women of the Academy" exhibition. In 2020, she created a graphic score called Colour Circle. This was for a project during the lockdown, inspired by Wassily Kandinsky's book about art.
Music Inspired by Art
Deborah has written many pieces inspired by Marc Chagall. One piece, Radiance, was for solo cello. It was inspired by The Peace Window at the United Nations. Another piece, Chagall's Light, was inspired by Chagall's windows at All Saints Church, Tudeley.
She has also worked with the artist Maggi Hambling in her studio. Their first collaboration was the violin concerto Wall of Water in 2014. During its performance, images of Hambling's paintings, also called Wall of Water, were shown.
Other pieces inspired by Hambling include Edge. This was a double concerto about global warming. It was performed at the 2017 Aldeburgh Festival. She also wrote March 2020 for solo violin, inspired by Hambling's painting of the same name. Both the painting and music were created during the lockdown.
Deborah has also found inspiration from other artists. These include Hughie O'Donoghue, George Shaw, and J.M.W. Turner.
Some of Her Works
- Light (2023) for solo violin
- Calandra (2022) for solo violin and string orchestra
- March 2020 (2020) for solo violin, inspired by a painting by Maggi Hambling
- Colour Circle (2020) a graphic score for any instrument
- Edge (2017) for violin, harp and string orchestra, inspired by paintings by Maggi Hambling
- Inside Colour (2016) for solo violin
- The Angel Standing in the Sun (2015) for orchestra, inspired by art by J.M.W. Turner
- Wall of Water (2014) for violin and string orchestra
- Skyspace (2012) for solo trumpet and string orchestra, inspired by art by James Turrell.
- Chanctonbury Ring (2000) for Pierrot Ensemble
