‘There is a very peculiar attitude to composition’, composer Alasdair Nicolson muses, ‘People back off from it because they imagine if they are not naturally equipped with the skills, there is no way they can learn composition through education – which is not true.’
Nicolson has worked extensively composing scores for West End theatre productions, conducting for orchestras such as the London Sinfonia, BBC Scottish Symphony and Scottish Chamber Orchestras, but also as an educator: teaching composition at the University of London, and in association with the London Sinfonia’s education programme. He observes that there is still a prevailing attitude that composing sits on one of the highest rungs of a perceived musical hierarchy – a notion a project created by the spnm, (Society for the Promotion of New Music) ‘Sound Inventors’, is challenging.
