Orlando Gough

Who is Orlando Gough?

Orlando Gough is a British composer, educated at Oxford, and noted for projects written for ballet, contemporary dance and theatre. Collaborators have included Siobhan Davies, Alain Platel, Shobana Jeyasingh and Ashley Page of The Royal Ballet. He is artistic director of The Shout, which he founded in 1998 with Richard Chew. The choir won the Time Out Award for Classical Artist of the Year in 2001. He released one album titled Message from the Border that was released on Catalyst/BMG Records. His 2001 commission from Fretwork, called 'Birds on Fire' was recorded by them for Harmonia Mundi under the same title and was released in 2008. He composed the music for the closing ceremony of the 2008 European Capital of Culture, Stavanger. Members of the choir include Carol Grimes, Melanie Pappenheim and Manickam Yogeswaran. In 2010 the Turner Contemporary commissioned Gough to compose a work for its opening ceremonies: "The Red Volcano" - for community choir and orchestra, had its World Premiere in April 2011 conducted by Anthony Castro.

Gough first came to prominence on the British music scene in the early 1980s as a co-founder of minimalist music ensemble The Lost Jockey. It was initially set up to perform the works of 'systems music' composers such as Steve Reich and Philip Glass. However, before long it switched to compositions by the group's own composers, of whom Gough was one of the most active. In live concerts he performed on piano, keyboards and tuned percussion. Around 1984 the ever-growing ensemble slimmed down to a septet called Man Jumping, again featuring Gough - who contributed several compositions to their two critically acclaimed albums.