Douglas Finch (Canada)
Canadian pianist and composer Douglas Finch is known for his unique improvisations, which have featured on programmes from early in his career. He studied in Canada and New York (William Aide and Beverage Webster), winning a Silver Medal at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels in 1978. After moving to the U.K., he co-founded and directed The Continuum Ensemble in London. He has written many works for piano, chamber ensembles and orchestra, as well as music for six feature films, most recently A Change in the Weather (2017) and A Clever Woman (2020) with British director Jon Sanders. Among his commissioned chamber works, two were premièred in 2018 and featured baroque instruments: Chorale Threnody at Vancouver New Music Festival and Twin Stars – Variations of a theme of William Herschel at Royal Albert Hall’s “Festival of Science: Space”.
Recordings include a CD of his music Inner Landscapes: Piano and Chamber Music 1984-2013 with pianist Aleksander Szram, on the Prima Facie label and Sound Clouds, featuring improvisations with Martin Speake (saxophone), on the Pumpkin label.
Douglas is Professor of Piano and Composition at Trinity Laban Conservatoire, where he has directed several large-scale events, including the online festival Preludes to New Lights featuring new and improvised music performed in quarantine from all over the world: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8mrJN8JS6hSlfFULIvrFy_QerXhSNmSV.
He is currently working on an opera about a young carer working with people with dementia, commissioned by the University of Nottingham.
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