Biography

Jeroen Speak received undergraduate training in music in New Zealand. With the aid of the William Georgetti and Herbert Sutcliffe scholarships he was able to complete a masters degree at Victoria University Wellington where he graduated in 1993 with an M.Mus. In 1994 he was the Composer in Residence at the Nelson School of Music before moving to Britain where he completed a D Phil at Sussex University under Michael Finnissy. Speak has also received tuition from Harrison Birtwistle, Jonathan Harvey and John Young.

The recipient of numerous awards, Speak has been featured at many International Festivals, including the Huddersfield Festival (UK), ISCM World Music Days, Gaudeamus, Darmstadt, and the Asian Composers League Festivals. He has been broadcast and performed worldwide. He has worked with some of todays most important musicians, most recently; Arne De Force (Belgium), Corado Canonici (Italy/UK), Lontano (UK), Forum Music (Taiwan), Stroma (NZ), Richard Haynes (Australia), Ensemble Antipodes (Switzerland) and Nicolas Hodges (Germany/UK). In 2004 Speak was awarded a Fellowship by the British Council to work in Taiwan where he lectured, and organised workshops and performances of British music. In 2005 he was offered a further fellowship to work and research in Shanghai (China). His current compositional interests include new approaches to timbre and tuning, his research in China will revolve around Chinese culture and aesthetics, aiming towards the creation of a body of new work. In 2006 he worked with the Swiss group Ensemble Antipodes on an exciting new work for octet which was premiered in the Gaudeamus festival (2006) and with the phenomenal pianist Nicolas Hodges who premiered ‘The Character of Time’ in Darmstadt (2006). In 2007 he is working on new projects for Egidius Strieff (Switzerland), Elision (Australia), Stroma (NZ), Richard Haynes (Switzerland/Australia), and Richard Craig (Sweden/UK).

Selected Works

• Works (14)
• Awards (2)