A previous student of the College, Lynne Plowman has worked as a
composition tutor at RWCMD since 2001, and was awarded an Honorary
Fellowship in 2007. Described in The Guardian as “a
mistress of theatrical effect”, her music ranges from intimate
songs, solos and chamber music to large-scale vocal, theatrical and
orchestral works. Commissioners have included the London
Mozart Players, Norfolk and Norwich Festival, Okeanos, O Duo, Piano
Circus, The Royal Shakespeare Company, Electric Voice Theatre and
Presteigne Festival.
In 2003, she was awarded a British Composers Award for her first
opera, Gwyneth and the Green Knight, described in
the Times as “One of the most brilliantly accomplished new
operas I have heard in many a year”. Since then, she has
composed three more operas, for Music Theatre Wales, Welsh National
Opera and Glyndebourne.
In 2012, Plowman received an Arts Council of Wales award,
enabling her to develop her orchestral writing, with the guidance
of Sir Harrison Birtwistle. Catching Shadows was premiered by
the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. “The result is a
thrilling muscularity and sureness of design, with material
developed from small motifs and cells atop underlying, contrasting
pulses. Through a series of sections in evolving tempi, pointillist
woodwind were interrupted by brassy outbursts and angular strings,
with some lovely, sustained harmonic writing for the latter in
particular.”
(Wales Arts Review, 2016)
www.lynneplowman.co.uk