Richard Causton

Born in London, Richard Causton attended Quintin Kynaston School and William Ellis Schools. His early musical education took place at the ILEA Centre for Young Musicians, specialising in flute (though also playing piano and singing in choirs). Causton studied at the University of York under Roger Marsh between 1990 and 1993. Having graduated with first-class honours, he took an M.A in composition the following year. He also undertook a Foundation Scholarship at the Royal College of Music, studying composition under Jeremy Dale Roberts and conducting under Edwin Roxburgh. In 1997, receipt of the Mendelssohn Scholarship enabled him to study electro-acoustic composition at the Scuola Civica di Musica. He has subsequently gone on to forge a consistent and productive career as a freelance composer and arranger. As well as composing, Causton has taught at the Birmingham Conservatoire (alongside his former teacher Edwin Roxburgh), Wells Cathedral School, and the Royal College of Music, and was Fellow Commoner in the Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge. He is currently Professor in Composition at Cambridge and a Fellow of King's College. Causton founded the Royal College of Music Gamelan Programme. He is also a founding member of Ensemble Corrente and has been a panel judge for the SPNM (Society for the Promotion of New Music) composers shortlist. He occasionally writes feature articles on contemporary music for The Guardian.

Causton is best known for his work in acoustic contemporary classical music. He first came to attention with The Persistence of Memory, which drew significant attention when premiered at the London Sinfonietta's 1995 'State of the Nation' Festival. He has been hailed as "a beguilingly gifted young composer" creating "moments of exquisite timbral sensitivity" (Robin Holloway in The Spectator), "nothing if not distinctive in his approach to composition" (www.classicalsource.com) and as "one of the finest of the new generation of British composers" (The Guardian). Causton's contemporary Julian Anderson (former Head of Composition at the Royal College of Music) has described him as being one of "the most original of his generation" and of possessing "exceptionally high standards of invention and imagination." Causton's compositions are widely played and have been performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Basel Symphony Orchestra, CBSO, London Sinfonietta, Nash Ensemble, Sinfonia 21, Jane Manning, Barrie Webb, and the Composers Ensemble. In the United Kingdom, his work has featured at the Spitalfields Festival, the Cheltenham Festival, the Park Lane Group evenings, and the York Early Music Festival (the latter in association with the Accessible Arts Club as part of a theatrical project with disabled people). In December 2010, it was announced that Causton had been selected as one of twenty composers to participate in the New Music 20x12 project as part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. Causton will compose a new work for the European Union Youth Orchestra to be premiered in 2012. Although the majority of his compositions are written for standard orchestral instruments and ensembles, some of Causton's material has featured unusual instrumentation not commonly used in Western classical music (such as gamelan ensembles or homemade instruments). He has also experimented with compositions utilising unusually placed sound sources - his radical 2001 arrangement of the Sanctus from Guillaume de Machaut's Messe de Nostre Dame featured two instrumental groups separated as far as possible (a strategy which anecdotally once broke up a Sinfonia 21 rehearsal when a "burly, tattooed Fire Officer" took exception to one of the groups blocking a fire exit). Causton has cited Pierre Boulez, Sir Michael Tippett, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luciano Berio, György Ligeti, Olivier Messiaen, Elliott Carter, Carl Nielsen, and Igor Stravinsky as particular musical inspirations. He has also commented "as far as musicians and other composers are concerned, I find the music of the post-war period, the 1950s and 1960s, really exciting because it seems as if the rate of change in music was incredible. New techniques were being invented all the time, electronic music was just appearing and there were huge advances in all kinds of technical ways. I think it was a hotspot in musical history and perhaps things have slowed down a bit now." In 2015, Causton was commissioned to compose a new carol to be premièred at the King's College service of Nine Lessons and Carols: The Flight was set to a poem by George Szirtes; Causton explained that he 'had a growing sense that at this precise moment it is perverse to be writing a piece about a child born in poverty, away from home and forced to flee with his parents, without in any way paying reference to the appalling refugee crisis that is unfolding. I phoned my friend, the poet George Szirtes to ask if he might be prepared to write me a poem which could encompass some of these ideas.'

• Threnody (for soprano, piano and two clarinets), 1991 • Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines (for soprano and ensemble), 1992 (revised 1994) • Non mi comporto male (for solo piano - variations on "Ain't Misbehavin'" by Fats Waller) - premiered by Stephen Wolff at the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, York, 27 May 1993 (winner: SPNM George Butterworth Award) • Two Pieces for two clarinets - premiered 1995 (winner: Fast Forward composition award) • Soliloquy (for solo bassoon), 1995 • The Persistence of Memory (for chamber ensemble) - premiered by Oliver Knussen and the London Sinfonietta at the South Bank Centre, 1995 (winner: 3rd International ‘Nuove Sincronie’ Competition) • Notturno, premiered 1998 (revised 2001) • Millennium Scenes (for large orchestra) - premiered by BBC Symphony Orchestra, 1999 (revised 2001) • Rituals Of Hunting And Blooding (for septet ensemble) - premiered by the Nash Ensemble at the Purcell Rooms, 2000 • The Flea (for solo male voice - setting of the poem by John Donne) - premiered 2003 • Inventions in One Part (for piano) - premiered by Karl Lutchmayer at The Warehouse, London, 15 June 2001 • Concerto for Solo Percussion and Gamelan - premiered by Evelyn Glennie at the Cheltenham Festival, 2001 • Kyrie and Sanctus (arrangement of two movements from Guillaume de Machaut's Messe de Nostre Dame) - premiered 2001 • Seven States of Rain (for violin and treated piano) - composed for Darragh Morgan (violin) and Mary Dullea (piano) - premiered 2003 (winner: 2004 British Composer Awards - Best Instrumental Work category) • Between Two Waves of the Sea (for orchestra and tape/sampler), premiered by the CBSO under Mike Seal at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, 2004 • Poems Almost of This World (for solo voice - settings of poetry from the Late T'ang) - premiered by Jessica Summers, 2005 • Jesu, Sweete Sone Dear (for choir and three soloists) - premiered by Caius College Choir, Cambridge, 2006 • Three Riddles (for three-part upper voice choir) - premiered by the New London Children's Choir, 2006 • Saraband/The Way the World Ends - premiered at the Aldeburgh Festival, 2006 • Phoenix (for quintet ensemble) - premiered by the London Sinfonietta, 2006 (winner: 2006 Royal Philharmonic Society Award - Chamber-Scale Composition category) • Sleep (for solo flute) - premiered by Sebastian Bell (London Sinfonietta), 2006 • As Kingfishers Catch Fire (for septet) - premiered by the Britten Sinfonia, 2007, revised 2008 • Chorales (for 2 gamelan instruments) - premiered at Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, May 2008 • Snatch (for chamber ensemble) - premiered by Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, May 2008 • English Encouragement of Art (for soprano, mezzo-soprano & percussion - setting of a poem by William Blake) - commissioned for NMC Recordings's NMC Songbook; concert premiere by Claire Booth, Susan Bickley and Owen Gunnell at Kings Place, London, 1 April 2009 • Chamber Symphony - large ensemble piece commissioned by Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, premiered 16 October 2009 • 21 Piano Nocturne - piano ensemble piece (inspired by Frédéric Chopin's Nocturnes) performed by 21 pianists on 21 upright pianos, commissioned by The City of London Festival and the Polish Cultural Institute, London, premiered at the Guildhall Yard, London, on 21 June 2010 (incorporated with Play Me, I'm Yours public artwork program by Luke Jerram) • Dark Processional - five-minute chamber orchestral piece based on Stabat Mater by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, premiered at Kings Place, London by Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment/London Sinfonietta, 16 October 2010 • Twenty-Seven Heavens - orchestral piece commissioned by the European Union Youth Orchestra. Premiered under the direction of Giananadrea Noseda at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, 20 August 2012 • De Profundis - solo cello, premiered by Anssi Karttunen, 8 November 2014 • Night Piece - solo piano, premiered by Tim Horton, 18 January 2015 • The Flight - for SATB choir, premiered by King's College Choir/Stephen Cleobury as part of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, 24 December 2015 • Between God & the Wall - for SATB choir, premiered by St Catharine's College Choir/Edward Wickham as part of the Music, Healing and Human Rights project, 14 March 2025