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Michael Ellison
Singing melody, a propulsive, yet mercurial sense of rhythm, large-scale harmonic control, and above all a keen dramatic bent characterize Michael Ellison’s work, which seamlessly integrates traditional (especially Turkish and western) and contemporary sensibilities. Ellison’s first opera, Mevlana-Say I am You (Rotterdam Operadagen and Istanbul Music Festivals, 2012) broke new ground for contemporary music, achieving an unprecedented level of integration of Turkish traditional instruments – a direction his second opera, Deniz Küstü (Istanbul Music Festival, 2016, Jones/Tanbay/NOHlab) extends. Ellison has been commissioned by BBC Symphony, Radio France, Berlin Saxophone Quartet, Grenoble Festival, New York Youth Symphony and New Music Southwest (UK), amongst many others. He is also principal investigator on the five-year, Bristol-based European Research Council project Beyond East and West: Developing and Documenting an Evolving Transcultural Musical Practice, and is co-director of Hezarfen Ensemble.