| Year of birth | 1988 |
| Nationality | United Kingdom |
| Period | Contemporary |
Read our October 2013 interview with Mark Simpson here.
Born in 1988 in Liverpool, in 2006 Mark Simpson became the first ever winner of both the BBC Young Musician of the year and BBC Proms/Guardian Young composer of the year competitions. He studied clarinet with Nicholas Cox at the Junior School of the Royal Northern College of Music and now studies privately with Mark van de Wiel. He read Music at St Catherine’s College, Oxford, graduating with first-class honours, and in 2012 completed an MMus in composition with Julian Anderson at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama supported by the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust. In 2012 he was selected for representation by YCAT.
As a clarinettist Mark made his Wigmore Hall debut at the age of 17. He has appeared as soloist with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic (Vasily Petrenko), Northern Sinfonia (Yan Pascal Tortelier), BBC Philharmonic (Gianandrea Noseda), City of London Sinfonia, Manning Camerata, BBC Concert Orchestra, Oxford Philomusica and the Cambridge Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2008 he was a soloist in the BBC Last Night of the Proms in Hyde Park.
Further afield, Mark has given recitals at the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, BeethovenFest in Bonn, Denver Colorado as a Lakewood Music Scholar, and toured the Middle East. During 2009/10 he was artist in residence with the Northern Chamber Orchestra.
Mark is deeply committed to the performance of new music. His debut CD was released on the NMC label and saw the culmination of five years of working with composers Mark-Anthony Turnage, Gary Carpenter, David Horne, Kenneth Hesketh, Gavin Higgins, Emily Howard and Stephen Pratt, developing new works for the clarinet and basset clarinet.
As a composer Mark has had works performed by some of the country’s leading orchestras and ensembles. In 2008 he wrote Threads for the National Youth Orchestra, Nur Musik for oboe and ensemble commissioned by Ensemble 10/10, and ‘A mirror-fragment...’ for orchestra commissioned by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. ‘A mirror-fragment...’ received its German première in Meiningen last year and in April received its London première by the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican. He has also written for the Mercury Quartet, pianist Richard Uttley and the Aronowitz Ensemble who performed his piece Los Proverbios in the Royal Concertgebouw in 2011.
In 2010 Mark won the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Award for which he wrote Lethe for trombone and ensemble, which was performed at the Royal Festival Hall. He was commissioned by the BBC to write sparks, the opening work for the 2012 Last Night of the Proms, and is a fellow on the Jerwood Opera Writing fellowship scheme. In 2013 he was awarded a Sky Arts Futures Fund bursary to enable the composition of a new work for an ensemble of instruments and voices.
Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes.