Andi Spicer Totally Explained

Everything about Andi Spicer totally explained

Andrew John Preston "Andi" Spicer (born 1959 in Birmingham, U.K.), is a British electroacoustic classical music composer who uses electronics (see Electronic Music (classical)) in his compositions.
The composer is also a writer and journalist. He has contributed to The Wall Street Journal (External Link

)(External Link

) and The Gramophone as a reviewer (External Link

) and has written for many international newspapers, magazines and news agencies, including Dow Jones Newswires and The Associated Press.

History and influences

He studied economics at Aston University in Birmingham and pursued a career in journalism, while composing and performing free form improvised music (see free improvisation). He lived in Johannesburg, South Africa between 1996 and 2003, after which he moved back to England. Since then he's been a member of the New Music Brighton(External Link

) and London Forum (External Link

) collectives of composers in the UK. His compositions have been featured at the Brighton Festival, Soundwaves Festival(External Link

), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Royal College of Music in London, London COMA Summer School,(External Link

)(External Link

) Bille en Tête Festival (Musique En Roue Libre) in Arras, France (External Link

)(External Link

) and at the All Ears Contemporary Music Festival(External Link

) in London, as well as at the Grahamstown Festival in South Africa and performed elsewhere in France, Mexico and the U.S. He is largely self-taught, although he took private lessons in composition and music theory with South African composer Martin Watt at the University of the Witwatersrand and composition workshops with British composer Michael Finnissy. His music uses serialist techniques (see serialism), improvisation, graphic notation, electronics (see electronic art music) and emphasizes surface textures, but is also influenced by southern African and Asian world music.
He is associated with the Gallery III (External Link

) group of artists, musicians and multi-media artists in Johannesburg, South Africa. Spicer is among a new generation of composers in post-apartheid (see apartheid) South Africa. Other examples are Dimitri Voudouris, Jürgen Bräninger, Cobi van Tonder

, Hannes Taljaard,(External Link

) Michael Blake (see Michael Blake - Composer)(External Link

)Robert Fokkens and Spicer's teacher Martin Watt.

Compositions

In Anglo Boer War (1999) he explored cluster note (see tone clusters) and microtonal techniques. The piece is a strident anti-war composition written for the hundredth anniversary of the Anglo Boer War (see Second Boer War) and was a collaboration with the artist James de Villiers.
His 63 Moons (2003) composition was heavily influenced by Javanese gamelan music, Shona mbira music (see Shona music) and contemporary minimalist (see minimalist music) composers. Click Language (2004) continued Spicer's African themes and uses sampled words from southern African click languages such as Xhosa (see Xhosa language), Zulu (see Zulu language) and Khoisan languages as a sound patina for four percussionists, comprising vibraphone, marimba, waterphone and other hand-held instruments. Baobab (2003) employs polyrhythms inspired by southern African drumming and features the vibraphone and marimba. There is a version of Baobab for harpsichord (2006), written for Polish harpsichordist Kasia Tomczak-Feltrin.. He is presently writing an opera for video based on Arno Schmidt's novel The Egghead Republic (Die Gelehrtenrepublik).
Recent works have explored live electronics and acoustic instrument blends,(External Link

) including midi instruments. Since the beginning of 2006, he's worked closely with French woodwind and electronic music soloist Julien Feltrin.(External Link

) Spicer has also worked with London-based percussion ensemble Brake Drum Assembly. (External Link

) He formed the ensemble Caos Harmonia (External Link

) to perform his music in 1997.

Film and video

Austrian video artist Peter Gold(External Link

) produced a short film for three movements of Anglo Boer War for the 2006 All Ears Contemporary Music Festival in London. Antarctica (1995-1996) is an early work for electronics written for an unreleased video of Antarctic (see Antarctica) landscapes.

Art installations

Spicer collaborated with performance artist Paolo Giudici

in the installation Thesis at the Hockney Gallery at the Royal College of Art in London in 2006. Painter/multimedia artist James de Villiers worked with Spicer in The Architecture of Air,(External Link

) which toured the US, Mexico and South Africa in 2001-2003 with Transformations,(External Link

) an exhibition of South African art. Inside, Outside (2001) is an electronic piece for a James de Villiers' installation of the same title shown at Carfax (External Link

) in Johannesburg.

Selected Works

Antarctica (1995-6) - for electronics, video
Virtually Ambient Shostakovich (1997) - for voices, sampler and keyboards
Anglo Boer War (1999) – for voices, strings and electronic manipulation
String Quartet Four (2000) – for string quartet
Sequenzas (2000) – for piano
Auto da Fe (2002) – for orchestra
In Memoriam Valdemar Rodriquez (2002) - for orchestra
63 Moons (2003) – variations for world music instruments, percussion and synthesizers
Bigga Digga (2004) - for voices
Shakespeare Whispers (2004) - for voices
Baobab (2004) – for percussion quartet
Click Language (2005) – for percussion quartet and electronics
pHyTHoN (2005) - for French horn & piano
Four Pieces (2005) - for brass quintet
Bird (2006) – for vibraphone and electronics
Euclid Alone (2006) – for Paetzold Great Bass, tenor recorders & electronics, French horn and percussion quartet
The Anthropic Principle (2006) – for midi wind controller and laptop
Polonnaruwa (2006) – for laptop electronics
Baobab (2004) – revised for harpsichord (2006)
Haut Voltage (2006) - improvisation for midi wind controller, clarinet and laptop electronics
The Giraffe Sleeper (2007) - for chamber orchestra, piano and laptop electronics
Cold, Cold (2007) - for laptop electronics and manipulated voice, words by Chris Edwards
For Dimitri Voudouris (2007) - for laptop electronics, electronically manipulated alto saxophone and French horn
The Ankithera Mechanism (2008) - for natural horn & electronics
Nazca (2008) - for chamber orchestra & laptop electronics

Further Information

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