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Cambridge Composer Philip Mead: ‘I do like to go in new directions’




Philip Mead is a Cambridge-based concert pianist, composer and conductor who describes himself as “a bit of an oddball”.

The highly experienced musician trained as a pianist at the Royal Academy of Music in London and then “really went into just traditional repertoire after that”.

Cambridge composer Philip Mead. Picture: Keith Heppell
Cambridge composer Philip Mead. Picture: Keith Heppell

“What is peculiar about me is that about every 15 years, I tend to go in a completely different direction,” explains Philip, who was previously a visiting professor at the University of Hertfordshire.

“A lot of pianists just learn the repertoire and then go around playing it, and are happy with that, but I’ve always, in a sense, not done that – I’m more of a ‘project person’.”

He continues: “Shortly after leaving the college, I got very involved with avant-garde music; Stockhausen, these guys, and also [American composer] George Crumb…

“I got a bit fed up with playing the piano on the keys, so I decided to do extended techniques, which means you play inside the piano and you use objects on it, things like that.

“I got very interested in that for a little while – gave the first performance of George Crumb’s Makrokosmos II in London. At that time he was very much a sort of in vogue composer.

“That led me into playing piano and electronics, and I commissioned about 60 new pieces for piano with live electronics.

“I don’t have any knowledge myself of the electronics side, but I enjoyed working with other people who knew what they were doing!”

Philip, whose daughter Caroline is also a musician, reveals that two of the pieces he worked on during that period have become “pretty established repertoire pieces”, especially Tombeau de Messiaen by Jonathan Harvey.

“That was extraordinary because Jonathan was quite a famous composer at that time, and I just rang him up out of the blue and said ‘Would you like to write me a piece for piano and electronics?’,” he recalls.

“He sort of hummed and hawed, as composers do, and about a week later he said ‘Yes, I’d like to write you a piece – and I’ve already written it!’

“Messiaen, the famous French composer, had just died and Jonathan wanted to do a memorial piece, so my call just came at the right time.”

Caroline Mead (on the flute) performing with dad Philip Mead at Catfest. Picture: Isabella Mead
Caroline Mead (on the flute) performing with dad Philip Mead at Catfest. Picture: Isabella Mead
Musician Caroline Mead performing with her dad, Philip Mead. Picture: Gill Mead
Musician Caroline Mead performing with her dad, Philip Mead. Picture: Gill Mead

Born and raised in Chadwell, near Tilbury (he has lived in Cambridge since 1977), Philip has been involved in numerous musical projects across the country over the years, and continues to be very active.

In October 2008, he organised a complete performance of the Associated Board ‘Spectrum’ pieces with 144 pianists – the first in the South of England – and in 2014, he organised a complete sponsored performance of Bartok’s Mikrokosmos, which raised more than £3,000 for a church restoration fund in Cambridge.

He also founded the British Contemporary Piano competition, a non-profit-making competition, in 1988. It ran every three years until 2013.

An aficionado of American music, Philip, who also taught piano at Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology (CCAT), before it became Anglia Ruskin University, can be seen on YouTube at the John Cage Festival in 2004.

“I’m playing the Henry Cowell Piano Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, which was at the Barbican,” he notes.

“That was quite a big night, got good reviews, and was broadcast on BBC4 and on Radio 3.”

By 1996-97, Philip felt his work with the “electronics business” had run its course and he changed to commissioning pieces for piano and brass.

“It was a project sponsored by the London College of Music, where I commissioned various pieces for various ensembles.

“The best piece to come out of that really was Martin Ellerby’s Cabaret Concerto, which is a great piece – it’s a jazzy piece for brass band and piano.

“As far as I know, it’s the only piece for brass band and piano that’s serious. I think there were a few silly ones but this is the only serious attempt.

“I originally recorded it with the Grimethorpe Colliery Band, a wonderful brass band – one of the top ones. They did the soundtrack for the film Brassed Off.”

Philip went on to form his own choir, the St Augustine Singers, in 2012. Based at St Augustine’s Church on Richmond Road, Cambridge, the choir includes Caroline in its ranks.

“They’re still going on, although I’ve retired from that now,” he says. “It’s now been taken over by Paul Jackson – and that was to explore the vocal repertoire, which I knew very little about…

“Pretty arrogant actually, to create a new choir in Cambridge is possibly even foolish (!), but it’s survived and it does some good charity work.”

Philip, whose most recent piece, composed for the choir is titled Ave Maris Stella (they sang it at some concerts before Christmas), has now gone back to “more traditional repertoire”, adding: “In a way I’m going back to where I started, with the piano music.”

Cambridge composer Philip Mead. Picture: Keith Heppell
Cambridge composer Philip Mead. Picture: Keith Heppell

At present, he also has a rather ambitious project on the go. “I’ve got it in mind to do a sort of ‘mega piece’, which is for multiple groups – brass band, choir, organ, possibly piano, junior choir,” he reveals.

“It’s going to be called A Universe Symphony! Nothing like thinking big, is there? That’s a working title – it might end up being something a bit more sensible, I don’t know.”

Getting 2025 off to a flying start, on New Year’s Day Philip played the piano in an “incredibly successful” production of HMS Pinafore at St Augustine’s Church, presented by the St Augustine Singers and Cambridgeshire Light Opera Group, and “conducted wonderfully well by Lucas Elkin”.

For more on Philip Mead, visit philipmead.com.



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