Kevin
Bowyer was born in Southend-on-Sea in January 1961 and studied with
Christopher Bowers-Broadbent, David Sanger, Virginia Black and Paul Steinitz.
He has won first prizes in five international organ competitions and has
gained a reputation for playing unusual and new music and for taking on
“impossible” projects. In 1987 he gave the world premiere of Kaikhosru
Sorabji’s two hour solo Symphony for Organ, considered “impossible”
ever since its publication in 1925. Other UK premieres have included works
by Brian Ferneyhough (Sieben Sterne), Anthony Gilbert (Halifenu
Vine Dance), Charles Wuorinen (Natural Fantasy) and Iannis
Xenakis (Gmeeoorh). Sorabji’s massive Second Organ Symphony (1929-32, about 6½ hours) is scheduled for performance in 2007.
At
home Kevin has played solo and concerto concerts in most of the major venues
and festivals. Trips and tours abroad have taken him throughout Europe,
North America, Australia and Japan. In summer 2003 he played the complete
solo organ Symphonies of Widor and Vierne and the complete organ works of
Olivier Messiaen in three concerts in the same week, 16 hours of music, at
St. Giles, Cripplegate.
Kevin
has released a great number of solo CDs, many of which have won awards.
These include many landmark recordings of contemporary music as well as the
complete organ music of J S Bach and music by Alkan, Brahms, Schumann,
Reubke, Hindemith, Schoenberg, Messiaen, Alain, etc. Jonathan Wearn, writing
in MusicWeb International, described him as “one of the world’s
hardiest and most formidable virtuosos… probably Britain’s most formidable
organist…” and Gramophone magazine described him as
“unique”.
He
is a popular teacher, working for the St. Giles International Organ School
and at the Royal Northern College of Music and the Royal Scottish Academy of
Music and Drama. Kevin has lectured and given masterclasses in many
countries and appears regularly on the staff of the Oundle Summer School for
Young Organists. He is Organist to the University of Glasgow and runs an
extensive recital series there which includes many new commissions. In this
capacity he will be premiereing works by Michael Finnissy, Edward Gregson,
Chris Dench, Arthur Butterworth, Iain Matheson and Alan Gibbs in 2007.
Performances of works by Dennis Báthory-Kitsz, Charles Camilleri, Ian Shaw,
Paul Ayres, Haflidi Hallgrímsson, Claude Loyola Allgén and Jan Vriend are
planned for 2007/8.
His article, “Twentieth Century European Organ Music – A
Toast”, cast as a play set in a Cotswolds pub, in the Incorporated
Association of Organists’ Millennium Book was described by one reviewer
as “quite simply the best piece of writing on organ music that I have ever
seen.”
Kevin’s other interests include reading widely, obscure cinema, real ale, malt
whiskies and looking at the sea. His favourite pastime is sleeping.
Visit Kevin's personal website: http://www.kevinbowyer.net
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