Joanna Marsh
Joanna Marsh | |
|---|---|
| Occupation(s) | Composer |
| Website | joannamarsh |
Joanna Marsh (born 1970) is a British composer of choral and orchestral works, who has lived in Dubai since 2007. She studied composition with Richard Blackford and Judith Bingham. She was a student at the Royal Academy of Music between 1998 and 1999, Organ Scholar at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge 1989-1992 and the School Organist at Christ's Hospital between 1997-2000. Joanna Marsh was later appointed Composer in Residence at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge in 2015 for a period of 5 years. During this time she wrote 5 works for the college choir and the college organ all of which feature on her album Sanctifica Nos: Choral and Instrumental Music by Joanna Marsh performed by the choir of Sidney Sussex College, Fretwork and Martin Baker, organ. Her earlier solo album, 'Flare' released on Friday 18th September 2020, features music performed by the BBC Singers, BBC Symphony Orchestra, The Choir of Royal Holloway, University of London and the London Mozart Players.
Joanna Marsh's life in the Middle East offered many unique musical opportunities including writing an orchestral work to celebrate the building of the Burj Khalifa, a commission for the BBC Symphony Orchestra for the first BBC Proms in Dubai in 2017, and a fanfare for the Queen’s visit to Abu Dhabi in 2010. The fanfare was the subject of a cross-examination of her style when the performers balked at the initial draft and contacted Border Force to ask whether it was appropriate for such a 'dissonant work' to be performed at this important occasion. Having listened to a Sibelius file of the piece down the phone, Border Force felt unqualified to give the go-ahead so they required her to submit an audio mockup of work to the Palace in advance for approval. The Fanfare was approved and no rioting occurred.
Her first opera was inspired by Dubai life: “My Beautiful Camel”. written with librettist David Pountney and as yet it has not been given its premiere. An early draft of Act 1 was workshopped by the National Opera Studio in 2017.
Joanna Marsh is a Co-Founder of ChoirFest Middle East in Dubai, an annual celebration of the region’s choral music scene which reached its eighth edition in March 2020.
She is the wife of the British businessman and musician, Paul Griffiths, with whom she has one child. They commissioned the French organ builder Bernard Aubertin to install a three-manual, 30-stop pipe organ in their home in East Sussex; it is the largest classical pipe organ in a private home in the UK.
Selected works[]
- The Tower (2008)
- St. Paul's Service (2010)
- Thou has searched me and known me (2015)
- Flare (2017)
- Pearl of Freedom (2018)
- My Beautiful Camel (2019)
References[]
External links[]
- Official website
- Gramophone Review (October 2021)
- Financial Times Profile
- CD Review (Guardian)
- Sidney Sussex Choir - Composer in residence
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- 1970 births
- Living people
- Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music
- 20th-century classical composers
- 21st-century classical composers
- 21st-century British composers
- British women classical composers
- 20th-century English composers
- 20th-century English women musicians
- 21st-century English women musicians
- Alumni of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
- 20th-century women composers
- 21st-century women composers
- British composer stubs