GERARD McBURNEY

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Gerard McBurney was born in Cambridge, UK, in 1954. After 2 years’ post-graduate study in the mid-1980s at the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire in Moscow, he returned to London, dividing time there between composing, writing, teaching, making programmes for radio and television, and working in the theatre. In 2006, at the invitation of Martha Gilmer, he was appointed Artistic Programming Advisor at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and Creative Director of the CSO’s Beyond the Score series. In 2017 Martha Gilmer invited him to join her at the San Diego Symphony as Creative Consultant.

Much of McBurney’s music reflects his fascination with Russian and Soviet culture, including orchestral, chamber and theatre pieces inspired by the life and work of the Russian Absurdist Daniil Kharms, and a ballet after Mussorgsky and Dostoyevsky. He has also reconstructed and orchestrated lost or forgotten works by Shostakovich, including the 1931 music-hall show Hypothetically Murdered, the 1932 ‘monkey-opera’ Orango, and the 1938 big-band Second Jazz Suite. His dance-band version of Shostakovich’s musical comedy Moscow Cheryomushki has been widely performed.

Others of his compositions reflect an interest in earlier forms of music, include chamber pieces derived from Bach, and a string quartet setting melodies of Hildegard of Bingen. He has a special love for the music and culture of the Highlands of Scotland, and is currently completing a large-scale piece inspired by the ancient bagpipe music known as pibroch.

Photo: Matthias von der Tann