Composing to a brief with ABRSM

Join composers Alan Bullard, Kristina Arakelyan, and ABRSM Partnerships Manager and composer James Welburn as they explore the world of composing to a brief with ABRSM. By placing the performer at the heart of the compositional process, writing music even within the strict parameters of a graded music exam can be creative, engaging and rewarding for composer, performer and examiner alike. This session will also give an overview of ABRSM’s six-month composer mentoring programme, which runs from September 2023 – February 2024 and for which applications will open in late May.

Find out more on ABRSM here

Wednesday 26th April 2-4pm

This session will be hosted online and will be recorded exclusively for members to watch back at a later date.

About the presenters

Alan Bullard

Alan Bullard is a UK composer whose music is performed all over the world and is published by Oxford University Press and ABRSM among others. He has been writing music all his life, and frequently undertakes commissions for choral societies, church choirs, orchestral societies and many other ensembles. He has also written much educational music, including the Joining the Dots sight-reading series, the Scale Explorer series (both ABRSM) and, jointly with his wife Janet, the Pianoworks series (OUP).

Kristina Arakelyan

Kristina Arakelyan is one of the UK's most exciting young composers. Her notable awards include the BBC Young Composers' Competition and the NCEM composers' competition and her works have been heard on BBC Radio 3 on numerous occasions and in the most prestigious concert halls in England. Kristina is delighted to be working with the NYCGB, BBC Singers, BBC Concert Orchestra, ABRSM and Stainer and Bell this year. Kristina took part in ABRSM’s inaugural composer mentoring programme in 2021 and her piece Daydream was featured in ABRSM’s Piano 2023 & 2024 syllabus.

James Welburn

James Welburn is a composer, pianist, guitarist and music educator based in London. He composes primarily for solo piano and is published by Editions Musica Ferrum. His debut release, Musical Escapades, was praised for its ‘rhythmic swagger that would not be out of place if juxtaposed with Prokofiev's lighter children's pieces’ by Murray McLachlan in International Piano’s July/August 2020 edition, while his latest album, Star of Wonder – a collection of contemporary Christmas carols – comes recommended by Pianist magazine, which featured his arrangement of Ding Dong Merrily on High in its Christmas 2021 edition.

As Partnerships Manager at ABRSM, James manages the organisation’s partnership and sponsorship activities globally, and oversees ABRSM’s composer mentoring programme, which was launched in 2021 to support the next generation of composers from diverse backgrounds.

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Composing to a brief with ABRSM (IA Members only event)