Turnage Mark-Anthony Turnage

Mark-Anthony Turnage CBE (born 10 June 1960) is an English composer of classical music.

Biography

Turnage was born in Corringham, Essex. His initial musical studies were with Oliver Knussen, John Lambert, and later with Gunther Schuller. He also has been strongly influenced by jazz, in particular by the work of Miles Davis, and has composed works featuring jazz performers including John Scofield, Peter Erskine, John Patitucci, and Joe Lovano.

Turnage has composed numerous orchestral and chamber works, and three full-length operas. Greek, composed with the encouragement of Hans Werner Henze and first performed in 1988 at the Munich Biennale, is based on Steven Berkoff's adaptation of Oedipus Rex. The Silver Tassie, first performed in 2000, is based on the play by Seán O'Casey. Anna Nicole, with a libretto by Richard Thomas and first performed in 2011, relates the rise and fall of Playboy model and media celebrity Anna-Nicole Smith. Other works include Three Screaming Popes (after the paintings by Francis Bacon), Your Rockaby (a concerto for saxophone and orchestra), Yet Another Set To (a concerto for trombone and orchestra, dedicated to Christian Lindberg), and From the Wreckage (a concerto for trumpet and orchestra, written for Håkan Hardenberger). Blood on the Floor (1993–1996), for jazz quartet and large ensemble, contains nine sections with a shared theme of drug addiction, the section titled "Elegy for Andy" being a lament.

Turnage was the first Radcliffe Composer in Association with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from 1989 until 1993 and between 2000 and 2003 was the BBC Symphony Orchestra's first Associate Composer. He was Composer in Residence with the London Philharmonic Orchestra from 2005 until 2010. Between 2006 and 2010, Turnage was a co-composer-in-residence of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a position he held alongside Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov.

In Autumn 2005, he was appointed the Royal College of Music's Research Fellow in Composition. In 2015 he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to music.