CMF-commissioned composition wins British Composer Award

On Tuesday 6th December at the annual BASCA British Composer Awards (sponsored by PRS for Music and in partnership with BBC Radio 3), hosted at the BFI Southbank, Oliver Christophe Leith was the winner of the ‘small chamber’ category for his work, A Day at the Spa. 

Leith was one of two compositions commissioned for the Kaleidoscope Saxophone Quartet’s debut album OIL, and was premiered by the Quartet in May 2015 at St John’s Smith Square.

The judges described the piece as ‘fluid, subtle and deceptive piece’ and a  ‘fragment of your recollection, as if you head the piece before and it now returns to you in its fullest form’. 

Leith and Day at the Spa sits alongside other first time winners such as Roderick Williams, Shri Sriram, Claudia Molitor and Tansy Davies as well as long-standing recipients including Jonathan Dove, Joe Cutler and Rebecca Saunders.

In an evening celebrating the best of new British music, we at CMF are ecstatic that the work created for our artists is being recognised at this international level.

Highlights of the evening’s events and an excerpt of the work can heard on this episode of BBC Radio 3’s Hear and Now (available on BBC iPlayer until January 9th 2017) and you can purchase a copy of OIL by Kaleidoscope Saxophone Quartet here.