Christopher Prosser

Photo credit: Stephen A'Court

Chris Prosser is a violinist-composer who writes music primarily to perform and record himself, as a solo artist and in collaboration. Much of the work exists in shorthand notation. Some scores have been written out for others to play.

Born in England 1956, Chris came to New Zealand at age 9. He started learning the violin and became head chorister at Southwell School, Hamilton. He moved to Christchurch, before composing Sonatina for Violin, Flute, Cello which won the 1972 Bank of New South Wales Chamber Music Competition. His qualifications in ATCL Violin Teaching, BA History (Canterbury University, NZ), and MA Music (Middlesex, London) followed.

Based in London during the 1990s, Chris won a British Council award, recorded for VPRO Radio Netherlands, performed free improvisation with London Musicians Collective and at traditional music festivals around Britain with roots/rock band, The Eclectics. He earned a living busking the Underground, took violin teaching courses by Kato Havas and Sheila Nelson, played at the Glencolumcille Fiddle Festival in Ireland, and taught Skills for Life at Hackney Community College.

In 2000 Chris founded Kauri Music Ltd and released four CDs reviewed in the international music press (The Wire, Cadence NY, Folk Roots) and broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Radio Hesse and Radio Populare Turino. He is currently living in Wellington.

In 2008 Chris was back on stage in Wellington playing free improvisation. He performed with ‘Wellington Most Famous Orchestra’ and ‘The Doubles’ at diverse venues such as Te Marae Te Papa, St.Andrews-on-the-Terrace, Happy, and Fred’s.

2011-2012 saw Chris performing with ‘New Klezeland’ klezmer band with J.Besser and R.Harris at the New Zealand International Arts Festival, ‘Chimera’ physical theatre show with S.Perfect at The Body Festival Christchurch, ‘Babylon’ voice theatre at NZ Fringe Festival, and ‘Found’ exhibition as resident composer/performer at Adam Art Gallery Wellington. He recorded the ‘Hunting Ground’ CD for solo violin and improvisations at Fred’s Wellington in 2012. The ‘Silver Darlings’ arrangements of traditional Scottish songs with S.Mechan culminated in a CD and South Island tour. He also performed regularly with SAMPLE collective Wellington. Chris performed solo improvised shows in the 2016 and 2017 Wellington Fringe Festivals, both featuring his own compositions.

Chris Prosser describes two different approaches to composing: “1. Violin in hand, music on and for that instrument, often with compound and additive rhythms similar to the Indian idea of ‘tala’. The scordatura pieces fall into this category. With standard tuning this violin based approach can lead to Balkan sounding modality and rhythms. 2. Away from the violin I also hear melodies and dances. These are scored for instruments to play solo or with chord accompaniment and resemble Celtic modal tunes. The music for flute with rhythm violin and the children’s dances for violin and guitar are examples of this second approach.”

Works such as Pacific (1992) are written for scordatura violin, and he has also focused on writing for violin in standard tuning which includes Additive Rhythm Cycles for Violin (2006). The more recent collection Snap Into It (2010) has skeleton structures for improvisation as well as fully composed pieces.

Chris' collaborations are various and include jazz and “crossover” bands around New Zealand which have incorporated elements of different musical genres (“1769” Christchurch; “Noise and Smoke”, “The Zestniks”, “Bowing Jets” in Wellington; “In Transit” in Dunedin, Harold Anderson in Auckland). In 2006 Chris studied with Leroy Jenkins, a jazz and blues violinist in New York, to arrange his solo compositions; a set which remains to be recorded.