JESSICA CURRY - UK
BORN 29 JULY
BORN 29 JULY
Jessica is an internationally acclaimed BAFTA-winning composer of contemporary classical music and is also co-founder of renowned games company The Chinese Room. Her work has been performed in diverse and high-profile venues such as The Old Vic Tunnels, The Barbican, Sydney Opera House, The Royal Albert Hall, Great Ormond Street Hospital, The Wellcome Trust, MOMI New York, The Royal Opera House, Sage Gateshead and Durham Cathedral. The Washington Post have described her music as “stupendous” and The Guardian praised her “gorgeous orchestral score” for Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture. The Rapture score has been voted in to the Classic FM Hall of Fame for the last two years.
Jessica's music has had extensive airplay on Radio 3 and Classic FM, as well as on radio stations and in concert halls around the world.
Jessica is currently London Oriana Choir’s composer in residence and she’s also been selected for PRSF’s New Music Biennial which is taking place in London’s Southbank and Hull in July 2019.
The recipient of a PRSF Women Make Music grant, Jessica's large scale choral and brass band work, The Durham Hymns, (a collaboration with Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy) premiered at Durham Cathedral.
Jessica was awarded the Outstanding Contribution award at Women in Games in 2018. She was also a finalist in the Hospital Club awards in the Games and Creative Industry categories 2017.
Jessica also works as a freelance composer and is available for hire on games, film, television and other projects.
♫ LISTEN
So Let us Melt - Great Friends by Jessica Curry
SOPHIE MENTER - SWEDEN
BORN 29 JULY
BORN 29 JULY
Sophie Menter was born in Munich, the daughter of cellist Josef Menter and singer Wilhelmine Menter (née Diepold). She studied piano with Siegmund Lebert and later Friedrich Niest. At 15, she played Carl Maria von Weber's Konzertstück for piano and orchestra with Franz Lachner conducting.
Her first concert appearances took her to Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Switzerland, and in 1867 she became acclaimed for her interpretation of Liszt's piano music at the Leipzig Gewandhaus. In Berlin, Menter became acquainted with the famous pianist Carl Tausig; she became a pupil of Liszt in 1869 after studying with Tausig and Hans von Bülow. Between 1872 and 1886 she was married to cellist David Popper, with whom she had a daughter named Celeste. In 1881 she first appeared in England and was awarded honorary membership of the Royal Philharmonic Society two years later. In 1883 she became professor of piano at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory but left in 1886 to continue concertizing.
Because of her popularity, Menter succeeded with music that no other pianist would touch. This included Liszt's First Piano Concerto, which she played in Vienna in 1869, 12 years after its disastrous premiere there. One of her recital specialties was a piece entitled Rhapsodies. This was a composite of three of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies—Nos. 2, 6 and 12—along with fragments from several others. She also composed various pieces for piano, mainly in a brilliant style, yet referred to her own compositional talent as "miserable."
♫ LISTEN
Romance Op. 5 by Sophie Menter
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