About Richard Lannoy
"Tangled Pipes impressively bridges vastly diverse musical worlds – early music, modernism and electronica, among others – without breaking a sweat.” Garrett Schumann, Sequenza21, Dec.2010
"Raising the bar: Richard Lannoy's new work for Tenor voice and Guitar" Femke Colborne, The Times June 2008
“It’s rare that the world premiere of a serious contemporary work grabs the imagination within the first moments...The question you now have to ask yourself is ‘would I turn out to hear this music again?’ As Lannoy’s valedictory and more extended ‘I Looked Back’ neared its conclusion, I was in no doubt that on this occaision the answer should be an unequivocal ‘yes’.” Paul Fowles, Classical Guitar. June 2010
Richard Lannoy is a British Composer. His wide-ranging experience and unflagging commitment to keeping Art music alive in contemporary society permeate his musical interests through a portfolio of activities.
His compositional interests to date lay in retaining the classical canon and its techniques whilst in pursuit of acoustically integrating sonic art explorations as common to DJ/producer/Turntablism as electro-acoustic music, whilst reclaiming musical techniques borrowed by films.
In addition to traditional scoring techniques, his music often draws upon instrumentations commonly associated with pop/folk musics, yet employed with a deliberately 'non-pop' approach, instead embracing and celebrating broader compositional and instrumental techniques akin to Art music, belying pop and folk music's often imposing limitations and the trappings of its mannerism and seizing upon the timbral and sonic tapestry on offer from the instrumentation itself. Most recent examples include 'Ode in Gratitude' for solo guitar, the recorder quintet 'Tangled Pipes' and song suite 'I Looked Back' for voice and guitar.
Initially trained on violin, piano and percussion alongside early choral singing experience, Lannoy began formally studying composition with Jeffrey Sharkey, winning a BP Young Composer award before entering London's Royal Academy of Music in London in the early 1990's where he studied primarily under Christopher Brown, gaining a BMus and was an Eric Coates Prize finalist, briefly studying separately with Steve Martland.
Despite an undiminished thirst for knowledge and initiatives forged as a student, a determination to positively cultivate interest in contemporary Art music among a broader society than served in the late 90's, free from the music's institutional, marginal disonnect with contemporary life, led Lannoy to successfully establish Subvision, London's trailblazing first contemporary classical club night in 1998 with DJ Jan Sodderland (read more here: Subvision).
Profoundly identifying the musical common ground between club/DJ producer-led music and contemporary classical music (from direct experience and knowledge of both worlds), Subvision took for granted certain performance practises/formats more commonly associated with dance music and rock gigs than classical concerts. Presented in bar/nightclub environments, automatically accessible to all, particularly a younger audience than usually associated with classical music, Subvision's aim at pushing the musical envelope, logically charting musical common ground in both it's DJing and live performances of new works, whilst buckling time-worn excuses of the music's 'elitism' was paramount. While such nights that followed often became exlusively pre-occupied with presentation, Subvision's focus remained musical, taking the environment for granted. Subvision attracted a wave of positive media attention from both musical worlds [click here: press archive] including BBC Radio3, Big Chill FM and european dance music stations including Paris's Radio Nova. Richard's early exploration of the electronica scene in the early 2000's led him to Berlin meeting Uwe Zahn (aka Arovane) and Elliot Perkins (aka Phonem), in turn leading Lannoy to present live performances with Subvision at Shoreditch's Below54 in early 2001. Subvision was also responsible for initiating the classical club aftershow post-concert classical club format they first developed at the Cheltenham Festival of Music in 2000 for their @22HR strand. This all proved again, to be initiatives since widely adopted in London, the Evening Standard describing Richard as "closer to the zeitgeist" later evidenced by the classical club scene that followed with such nights as Nonclassical, Blank Canvas, Yellow Lounge, This Isn’t For You, Limelight, Harmonic and most recently Night Shift. Lannoy's experience has since been utilized by Nonclassical as curator/producer/resident DJ developing the club night since 2008. Most recently Richard has worked with developing club nights for the London Symphony Orchestra's post-concert series Aftershock at London's Barbican Centre since its inception in 2011 and Roundhouse 'Reverb' festival in 2012, both drawing large audiences.
Meanwhile, in tandem, Lannoy broadened his collaborative cross-arts experience developing his work initially with choreography before extensive work with film makers composing music for screen among a diverse community, leading most recently to his research interests into music and gesture.
Retaining connections with the traditional concert hall, Lannoy made his Purcell Room debut with a Park Lane Group commission in 2000 with his electro-acoustic work: ‘Fabric’n'Phrazed’ for woodwind and electronics critically well-received and broadcast on BBC Radio3 described by the Evening Standard as “Highly pulsating and attractive”. Further concert work highlights include choral work ‘Come Away Death’ performed and broadcast by the BBC Singers on BBC Radio3 and his one-movement cello concerto ‘Soul Times, Soul Days’ was premiered in Salisbury Cathedral. His recent song suite ‘I Looked Back’ received its world premiere in Firth Hall, Sheffield in March 2010 by Kevin Kyle and Carl Herring to critical acclaim in Classical Guitar Magazine. Its partial premiere in June 2008 was hailed by The Times as “Raising the bar”. In 2013, it will receive it's London premiere at the National Portrait Gallery 'Lates' concert series.
Surviving a stroke in summer 2009, Lannoy boldly returned with the 5-part fugue ’Tangled Pipes’ for Consortium5 in 2010, featured on their critically acclaimed debut recording released on Nonclassical in Febraury 2011 voted Chicago TimeOut’s Classical CD of the year, going onto receive some 9 performances since. Tangled Pipes typically reflects Lannoy's keeness to explore new territory whilst retaining tradition both musically and in its many and diverse performances to date including live broadcast for BBC Radio3′s ‘In Tune’ in April 2011, Horse & Groom pub 2009, Spitalifields Market for Spitalfields Music Summer Festival 2011, London’s Kings Place on Jan.17th 2011, St.George’s Church W1, The Forge Camden, July’s Truck Festival in Oxford, Little Missenden Festival in Hertfordshire in October 2011, continuing with performances in May 2012 at Spring Festivals York (streamed live on the web) in May and Newbury.
Lannoy's Ode in Gratitude for solo guitar for Carl Herring, premiered on 2nd June 2011 at The Forge in Camden, is a cryptographically-composed tribute to the neurologist who’s life-saving treatment Lannoy received in 2009. Since it's premiere, Carl has performed 'Ode in Gratitude' at the Spitalfields Summer Festival 2011, St.Lawrence Jewry festival in August 2011, in November at De La Warr Pavillion's 'Four:Four' season in East Sussex and London’s Kings Place and was performed again in 2012 at London's National Portrait Gallery Late Shift Concert series prior to recording for future release.
In 2012, Lannoy's work 'Mancala: Letting Go' - inspired by a film script by Adam Rowley, is a collaboration with pianist Leon Michener and percussionist Mark Saunders exploring improvisation on fragments and musical procedures from Lannoy's fully composed composition was performed at London's Vortex Jazz club in February. In July his critically acclaimed song suite 'I Looked Back' was performed by its dedicatees Kevin Kyle and Carl Herring at the Dillington Guitar Festival in Somerset. Meanwhile, Lannoy's latest work 'Bagatelle' for string quartet was premiered in Sheffield in March and is currently composing a 3-movement Sonatina for solo guitar for guitarist Carl Herring whilst developing a substantial work for large ensemble.
Richard's work as a classical contemporary music producer most recently includes 10 concerts for ‘Nonclassical Lunchtime in the Market’ series in Spitalfields Market for Spitalfields Music Summer Festival 2011; London Symphony Orchestra's first post-concert contemporary music club night series Aftershock at London’s Barbican Centre the first featured works by Steve Reich, followed by Aftershock2 (Nov 2011) collaborating with art collective, Off Modern, which saw Richard provide a special live remix with musicians from the LSO, a night that drew large audiences onto the foyers comprising London's urban youth to experience classical and contemporary music, further installments in 2013 where Richard worked with the Spassov Trio in January and curated the LSO Soundhub composers concert in April with LSO Discovery, with more to come in the year.
Lannoy's work as an experimental Turntabalist has been heard at Late at Tate in 2009, featured at the 2010 Sound Waves Festival in Brighton and with pianist Will Dutta in 2011 at London’s ICA, King Place and Spitalfields Summer Festival. 2012's highlights included performing John Cage's 'Credo in U.S' with George Barton, Craig Apps (percussion), Siwan Rhys (piano) and 'Imaginary Landscape no.1' with Gabriel Prokofiev, Leon Michener, Sam Mackay for Nonclassical's John Cage's 100th anniversary celebrations and with Will Dutta's 'Pareagon' live line-up joined by Katherine Ring on percussion performing at London's British Film Institute.
Lannoy also featured on the bill with the London Sinfonietta at June 2011′s Village Underground/Blank Canvas launch. Lannoy has DJ’d at many numerous events since 1998 in clubs, bars and indoor and outdoor festivals to non-traditional venues such as art galleries, most recently including PRS Foundation Awards, Serpentine Gallery Pavillion in 2010, Scottish Ballet Company Launch in November 2010 and events at London’s Saatchi Gallery 2011, ‘Sssh’ at London’s V&A among and BT Openworld in London's BT Tower among others.
As a composer of incidental music, Lannoy has completed numerous commissioned scores for dramatic, documentary and advertising productions for television, film and radio including work for BBC, Channel 4 and ITV1 in addition to nearly 20 independent films, most recently the working-class dramady and multi-award-winning feature film ‘The Be All and End All’, winning Variety Critics choice award and screened internationally, released in UK cinemas in 2010 and DVD/Blueray in 2011. Lannoy's score described in Variety as: “modest but pro, Richard Lannoy’s score adds an atmospheric touch without being mawkish” demonstrated his ability both as composer, conductor, orchestrator and producer. The film's awards include Variety Critics choice at Karlovy Vary film festival, Best Feature Film Award at Monte Carlo, Durango, Ale Kino, Nashville and Washington DC film festivals 2011 and was British Independent Film Award shortlisted in 2009, followed by its Polish premiere and cinema release in October 2012 under the title 'Jak to Jest'. Since then, with over 15 years industry experience behind him, Richard has been keen to put something back into the business mentoring students, both in music and film education. Richard's incidental music catalogue is handled by Syncrmusic.
Lannoy works sporadically as an arranger, most recently scoring for Flamenco guitarist Eduardo Niebla and the Dante String Quartet for their collaboration at the Dante Festival 2011. As a studio arranger and conductor Lannoy has worked for labels including Universal Music and Redemption.
As remixer his work includes remixing Instrumental Strings reworking of Orbital's 'Forever' for the Big Chill and recently GProkofiev’s ‘Concerto for Turntables’ (2009) & ‘Import/Export: Suite for Global Junk’, both released on the Nonclassical label and available on Amazon and iTunes .
As a passionate freelance music educator, Lannoy teaches and lectures in composition and related fields both privately, music colleges and film schools as well as successfully preparing pupils for music college at both Undergraduate and Masters level in addition. Since 2011, he devised and led workshops on music in film for film students, advising on all aspects of the collaborative process of working with a composer, where he subsequently forged and mentored practical collaborations between student film makers and composers.
Lannoy's ongoing, numerous composition research topics include music and gesture, acoustic mapping of electronic music and taking a keen interest in music's relationship with neuroscience especially in neuorlogical rehabilitation. He has just begun a blog to raise awareness about stroke among musicians: Stroke Awareness for Musicians
