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Composer Steven Mackey was born in 1956. His first musical passion was playing the electric guitar in rock bands based in northern California. He later discovered concert music and has composed for orchestras, chamber ensembles, dance and opera. Since the mid-1980s he has resumed his interest in the electric guitar and regularly performs his own work, including two concertos as well as numerous solo and chamber works. Mackey is Professor of Music at Princeton University where he teaches composition, theory, twentieth century music, improvisation and a variety of special topics. As co-director of the Composers Ensemble at Princeton he coaches and conducts new work by student composers as well as twentieth century classics. He says “I think my music is weird but with a sense of humour, bright, colourful but slightly twisted”.
The Attrampe String Quartet was formed in 2005 at the Royal Northern College of Music under the guidance of the late Dr. Christopher Rowland. The members of the quartet are now in their fourth year of study at the RNCM and have performed a wide variety of music throughout the Manchester area including the prestigious annual chamber music festivals at the RNCM. They have received coaching from many internationally recognised chamber musicians, including members of the Endellion, Belcea and Alban Berg Quartets. The members of the Quartet previously studied at the Purcell School, Chetham’s School of Music and the Yehudi Menuhin School and they hope to continue their studies abroad in the future. Peter Liang, age 21, is from Cirencester in Gloucestershire. Katrina, 21, is from Kensington, West London. Yosuke, originally from Japan, is also 21. Ben, aged 22, hails from County Dublin. All are in their final year of undergraduate study on the Bachelor of Music course at the RNCM.
The Attramp String Quartet appears by kind permission of the Royal Northern College of Music, www.rncm.ac.uk.
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