In October 2022 I joined the staff at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover, where I serve as Professor of Composition and Director of Incontri—Institut für neue Musik. I teach individual composition lessons for Bachelor, Masters, and Soloklasse students, and I lead and team-teach the weekly Neue Musik Seminar. Information about our degree programs and the process for applying can be found here. (For potential applicants, note that the Soloklasse (sometimes known in other institutions as ‘Konzertexamen’) has no German language requirement. The Bachelor and Masters programs require B2-level German, though there is some flexibility about when the language proficiency certificate needs to be presented—for Masters students in particular, it is often possible to postpone the language certification until the end of the first year of study. Individual lessons can take place in either English or German, and at present our composition and electronic music seminars and our guest lecture events are given in a combination of German and English.) Please feel free to contact me through my university email address with any questions about our composition programs.
I worked previously at the University of Huddersfield as Professor of Composition from 2007–22, where I was also Director of the Centre for Research in New Music (CeReNeM) from 2017–22. In addition to 15 years of composition teaching at Huddersfield, including supervising 35 PhD and Masters by Research projects, I also taught conducting and various modules in musicology, analysis, music technology, and innumerable individual projects on a wide variety of subjects. Earlier in my career I taught as Lecturer in Composition at Northwestern University from 2005–07, as Lecturer in Music at Buffalo State College from 2003–04, and as Presidential Fellow at the University at Buffalo from 1998–2003.
I have given composition masterclasses and individual lessons at institutions worldwide, including at Harvard, Northwestern University, SUNY Buffalo, Oberlin, Penn State University, Oxford, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Singapore, SEGi College Malaysia, Society of Malaysian Contemporary Composers, as well as through extended Erasmus exchange residencies at Kunstuniversität Graz, the Norwegian Academy of Music, and the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Málaga. Additionally I’ve given lectures on my compositional work at Columbia, CalArts, University of Chicago, Oxford, Southampton, Durham, York, RMIT, Monash, University of Queensland, Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität Linz, Hochschule für Musik und Theater “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy” Leipzig, Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf, Hochschule der Künste Bern, Orpheus Institute Ghent, Goethe Institut-Los Angeles, Kulturstiftung Schloss Wiepersdorf, and the Institute of Contemporary Arts London.
I have taught as well at various festivals and composer courses, including Mixtur Festival Barcelona, the Florida Contemporary Music Festival, the Beverley & East Riding Early Music Festival (National Centre for Early Music, York), and the Line Upon Line Austin Winter Composer Festival (January 2023), and have led several student composer workshops and professional development programmes as a conductor, including with Ensemble Musikfabrik (Adventure #5 and Adventure #9, in partnership with the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln), ELISION (University at Buffalo), Ensemble Proton Bern (Protonwerk No. 11), and International Contemporary Ensemble (Northwestern University).
I am also available for private lessons, both in composition and conducting, either internationally via Zoom or in person in Berlin. Please contact me through the Contact form in the righthand navigation pane for information about rates and scheduling.