Draft:Nick Martin (composer)
British composer based in Denmark
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nick Martin is a British composer based in Copenhagen, Denmark. His music has been performed at Carnegie Hall, the Barbican, Wigmore Hall, and Kings Place, and broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Danish Radio P2, Deutschlandradio Kultur, and ABC Classic. He is the recipient of the 2023 Pelle Prize, awarded by KLANG Festival and Edition Wilhelm Hansen in honour of the late Danish composer Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen.
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Early life and education
Martin studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London under composer Simon Bainbridge, before completing a master's degree in composition at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, where his teachers included Bent Sørensen and Hans Abrahamsen. He has made his home in the Nordic countries since 2009, based in Copenhagen and formerly in Helsinki, with periods working in Reykjavík.
Career
Martin's orchestral and chamber music has been performed and commissioned by leading ensembles and orchestras including Ensemble Intercontemporain, Manchester Camerata, Copenhagen Phil, Concerto Copenhagen, The Marian Consort, the Solem Quartet, and the Nordic String Quartet. Soloists who have premiered and championed his work include violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen, accordionist Bjarke Mogensen, cellist Clare O'Connell, and violinist Daniel Pioro.
In 2022 he released the album Terroir under his ensemble project Blue Luminaire on Bella Union.[1] Further releases appear on Platoon, Orchid Classics, Dacapo Records, and NMC Recordings.
Between 2019 and 2023 he taught composition at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen.
Maternal (2025)
Martin's violin concerto Maternal was commissioned by Manchester Camerata and premiered at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester on 4 September 2025, with violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen as soloist.[2] Subsequent performances took place at The Hepworth Wakefield and Kings Place, London. The concerto was inspired by sculptor Barbara Hepworth's Landscape Sculpture — a carved elm form with nine strings of fishing line — and addresses themes of maternal care, tenderness, and family. Martin composed the work whilst staying in St Ives, Cornwall, where Hepworth lived and worked for much of her life and where the Barbara Hepworth Sculpture Garden is situated.[3]
Reviewing the world premiere for The Arts Desk, the critic described the work as capturing "feelings of care and trust shared by a mother and a child", noting Martin's "slowly-built accumulations of textures, fundamentally tonal" and drawing comparisons with Pēteris Vasks.[4] A further review in Thoroughly Good described the concerto as "an intensely sensory slow-burn, glowing with joy, pride and melancholy", calling it "a love letter to sculptor Barbara Hepworth".[5]
Accordion concerto for Bjarke Mogensen
Martin has composed several works for accordionist Bjarke Mogensen, beginning with Mother of Sorrows premiered at Carnegie Hall in 2011. Mogensen has announced that Martin is composing a new accordion concerto for him, writing on his website: "Nick Martin has gone on to compose several more works for me and is now beginning a new accordion concerto."[6]
Growth Rings (2020)
Growth Rings for solo violin and choir received its UK premiere at Wigmore Hall, London on 28 March 2024, performed by violinist Daniel Pioro and The Marian Consort.[7]
Mother of Sorrows (2010)
Mother of Sorrows for solo accordion was premiered by Bjarke Mogensen at Carnegie Hall, New York in May 2011.
Awards and recognition
In 2023 Martin received the Pelle Prize, awarded by KLANG Festival and Edition Wilhelm Hansen in honour of the late Danish composer Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen.[8] The prize is awarded to a composer "whose talent dares to cross the norms of its time".
He has received grants from the Danish Arts Foundation, KODA, Art Music Denmark, Culture Moves Europe, and the Francis Routh Trust.
Music critic Paul Morley, writing in The Guardian, described his music as "deliciously sparse and exquisitely controlled", adding that it was "contemporary music that can be of interest as much to Sigur Rós and Can fans as to lovers of Birtwistle and Cage".[9]
Selected works
- Azalea Garden for sinfonietta (2007), premiered by the National Youth Orchestra at the Tate Modern, London
- Mother of Sorrows for solo accordion (2010), premiered by Bjarke Mogensen at Carnegie Hall, New York
- Time Passes (mise en abyme) for small ensemble (2013), premiered by Ensemble Intercontemporain, Copenhagen
- Bittersweet for mezzo-soprano and ensemble (2019), recorded by KIMI Ensemble on Dacapo Records (2022)
- Terroir for ensemble (2020), released on Bella Union as Blue Luminaire (2022)
- Kołysanka for violin and orchestra (2021), recorded by Daniel Pioro on Platoon (2022)
- Queer Tears for string quartet (2021), performed by the Solem Quartet at Wigmore Hall and Kings Place
- Growth Rings for solo violin and choir (2020), UK premiere at Wigmore Hall by Daniel Pioro and The Marian Consort (2024)
- Maternal, violin concerto for Tamsin Waley-Cohen and Manchester Camerata (2025), world premiere at Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
Discography
- Bittersweet (Dacapo Records, 2022) — recorded by KIMI Ensemble
- Kołysanka (Platoon, 2022) — recorded by Daniel Pioro and Katherine Tinker
- Terroir (Bella Union, 2022) — released as Blue Luminaire