Bushra El Turk is an award-winning young British-born Lebanese Composer with an amazing talent for classical music. Bushra El-Turk's ironic and allegorical musical vocabulary derives as much from theatre, dance and literature as it forebears her Lebanese roots, life as a Londoner, and love of folk music.
Bushra began to study the 'cello and piano from a young age at the Centre for Young Musicians and then went on to study composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Julian Philips, where she graduated with a Bachelor and then gained a Master in Composition with Distinction, supported by a PRS Foundation Scholarship.
She has written various works for the concert hall, both performed and broad-casted on radio and television both in the UK, across Europe and the Middle-East.
She has had a particularly fruitful artistic partnership with choreographer Aya Jane Saotome, with whom she has exchanged surreal and absurd themes in music and movement with the dance productions Tende(r)age and Peck! at The Place Theatre in London.
Most notable theatre productions include I Capture the Castle (dir. Christian Burgess) and Twelfth Night (dir. Christopher Luscombe).
Recent projects have included her piece, Kilamuwa I of Zenjirli, based on early Phoenician text, for Orkest de Ereprijs after being selected to participate in the 13th International Young Composers Meeting with Louis Andriessen in the Netherlands following on from a recent invitation to the Sentieri Selvaggi International Composers Masterclass in Milan with Julia Wolfe, Metaphysical Enemy, a piano duet commissioned by Sounds Underground and a piece for flute and piano commissioned by Wissam Boustany.
Her string quartet, Eating Clouds, was among the five selected pieces in the University of Aberdeen International Music Prize and was performed by members of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in April.
She was pleased to be invited to participate in the 'Composing for Voice' scheme with Opera Genesis at the Royal Opera House in London.
AWARDS:
Bushra began to study the 'cello and piano from a young age at the Centre for Young Musicians and then went on to study composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Julian Philips, where she graduated with a Bachelor and then gained a Master in Composition with Distinction, supported by a PRS Foundation Scholarship.
She has written various works for the concert hall, both performed and broad-casted on radio and television both in the UK, across Europe and the Middle-East.
She has had a particularly fruitful artistic partnership with choreographer Aya Jane Saotome, with whom she has exchanged surreal and absurd themes in music and movement with the dance productions Tende(r)age and Peck! at The Place Theatre in London.
Most notable theatre productions include I Capture the Castle (dir. Christian Burgess) and Twelfth Night (dir. Christopher Luscombe).
Recent projects have included her piece, Kilamuwa I of Zenjirli, based on early Phoenician text, for Orkest de Ereprijs after being selected to participate in the 13th International Young Composers Meeting with Louis Andriessen in the Netherlands following on from a recent invitation to the Sentieri Selvaggi International Composers Masterclass in Milan with Julia Wolfe, Metaphysical Enemy, a piano duet commissioned by Sounds Underground and a piece for flute and piano commissioned by Wissam Boustany.
Her string quartet, Eating Clouds, was among the five selected pieces in the University of Aberdeen International Music Prize and was performed by members of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in April.
She was pleased to be invited to participate in the 'Composing for Voice' scheme with Opera Genesis at the Royal Opera House in London.
AWARDS:
Won PRS for Music Foundation's 'Women Make Music Award' to work on Metta Theatre project.
Lebanese Composers CD out in France which features 'Ostina-bush-to' for solo piano
October 6th 2012 - Bushra to present her scores to the President of Lebanon for the inauguration of the Centre du Patrimoine Musical Libanais (CPML)
To start an AHRC-funded PhD in Composition from October
UPCOMING CONCERTS:
1st September, 2012 at 8pm, Atlas Ensemble (28 players) perform 'Dramaticule IV' for 26 non-western and western instruments as part of Atlas Festival , Amsterdam
1st November 2012 at 8pm, University of Princeton performs Eating Clouds as part of Fertile Crescent Women Festival, Princeton, USA
7th November, 2012 at 7:30pm, Dante Quartet, Robert Plane, clarinet and Benjamin Frith, piano, perform 'Dramaticule II' in a concert for Music from Lebanon at St John's Smith Square, London
20th November to 1st December, 2012, 'Arab Nights' in a Metta Theatre production at Soho Theatre and then touring the UK incl. Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre. London, Manchester, etc
30th November, 2012, new commission for the Bramall Festival, Birmingham, UK
12th January 2013, concert at the Lincoln Center, New York City, USA
11th April, 2013, 1:30pm the LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA to perform a new piece as part of LSO Panufnik scheme, conducted by Francois Xavier-Roth at LSO St Luke's, London
For more info see http://www.bushraelturk.com/
Lebanese Composers CD out in France which features 'Ostina-bush-to' for solo piano
October 6th 2012 - Bushra to present her scores to the President of Lebanon for the inauguration of the Centre du Patrimoine Musical Libanais (CPML)
To start an AHRC-funded PhD in Composition from October
UPCOMING CONCERTS:
1st September, 2012 at 8pm, Atlas Ensemble (28 players) perform 'Dramaticule IV' for 26 non-western and western instruments as part of Atlas Festival , Amsterdam
1st November 2012 at 8pm, University of Princeton performs Eating Clouds as part of Fertile Crescent Women Festival, Princeton, USA
7th November, 2012 at 7:30pm, Dante Quartet, Robert Plane, clarinet and Benjamin Frith, piano, perform 'Dramaticule II' in a concert for Music from Lebanon at St John's Smith Square, London
20th November to 1st December, 2012, 'Arab Nights' in a Metta Theatre production at Soho Theatre and then touring the UK incl. Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre. London, Manchester, etc
30th November, 2012, new commission for the Bramall Festival, Birmingham, UK
12th January 2013, concert at the Lincoln Center, New York City, USA
11th April, 2013, 1:30pm the LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA to perform a new piece as part of LSO Panufnik scheme, conducted by Francois Xavier-Roth at LSO St Luke's, London
For more info see http://www.bushraelturk.com/