Professor Alastair Borthwick

It is my privilege to be Head of a School that covers so many art forms and creative media. The vision for the School is for it to be a broad-based microcosm of the creative world, in which students learn in, or replicate, real-world work scenarios, guided by staff who deliver excellent research and/or engage in professional practice, and do so as part of a flourishing network of connections with creative arts and industries organisations, which they endeavour to mirror, and which staff and students help to grow and maintain. My role is to bring staff and students together to enable this, to build a community of creatives that reaches across the University and beyond - regionally, nationally, and internationally.

I joined Canterbury Christ Church University in February 2020, as Head of a new School of Creative Arts and Industries. Before that I was a Lecturer in Music at the University of Hull for nearly 25 years, becoming Head of Department in 2008, a Professor in 2010, and Head of School in 2013. My teaching focused on composition, music theory & analysis, and British music since the 1940s.

SELECTED CHAMBER MUSIC
In Memoriam Patris Mei (for piano). Performed by Lorenda Ramou at European University Cyprus (May, 2023)
Sighs Resound (for piano, flute and oboe). City of Culture Commission for the Ellipsis Trio (November 2017).
Snake Lines (for pithkiavli, piano, guitar and electronics). Performed at the Museum of Archaeology in Nicosia, Cyprus (July 2014). Erasmus funded. Revised and performed in Hull (2016).
Helical Time (an open ended song cycle for combinations of baritone voice, violin, piano and trumpet with instrumental pre-/inter-/post-ludes):
‘Time Being’, for baritone voice and piano. Duration: In Tsang, L. & Venables, P. (eds) Finding Ursula Vaughan Williams: An Anthology of New Songs for Voice and Piano, with an Introduction by Lee Tsang (York: University of York Music Press, 2010); and ‘Days’, for baritone voice, piano, trumpet and violin (a setting of the poem by Philip Larkin). Performances (as part of the whole ‘helix’) in Hull and Chinese University of Hong Kong, March 2013.
Angel (for arpeggione and electronics). First performed Nicolas Delataille, University of Hull, April 2012.
Exspecto Vitam for piano (2008). Performances by Julian Jacobson (Hull, London).
In Memoriam – CAthErinE DAlE for piano (2006). Commissioned for the Beijing Modern Music Festival, 2006. Premiered by Xiang Zou. Other performances in London (Julian Jacobson), Cyprus.
Lacuna Lullaby for Cello and Piano. (1996). Score held by British Music Information centre. Premiered by players from the London Sinfonietta at the Royal Festival Hall 1997 as part of the State of the Nation Festival. Other recent performances in Beijing (Contemporary Music Festival 2006) and Cyprus (Musical Liaisons concert 2008).
String Quartet (1995). Received a Dio award from the Arts Council of Great Britain. First performed by the Bingham String Quartet at the Go West Festival, Haverfordwest, Wales, September 1995.

SELECTED CHORAL MUSIC
Missa Brevis (Performed by the The Swan Consort, May 2022, London Festival of Contemporary Church Music; and at the Canterbury Festival, October 2023).
Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis (Duke University Chapel, USA, February 2019; and London Festival of Contemporary Church Music, May 2019).
Telling God’s Story for SATB (2005). Runner up in BBC/St Martin in the Fields carol competition, 2005. First performed by Hull University Chapel Choir, December 2005.
O Logos for SSAATTBB (2002). Recorded by Royal Holloway Choir, London. CD RR1016.

SELECTED ORCHESTRAL MUSIC
Lear Settings (2009). 3-part animation by Rozi Fuller. Music for parts 1 and 3 by Borthwick. Duration: 35 minutes. Arts Council England funded project. DVD film premiered at Bradford Animation Film Festival 2009.
Equiano’s Lament for soloists, choir and orchestra (2007). Arts Council England funded commission for Hull Sinfonietta and University of Hull choir and orchestra. Premiered at the Wilberforce International Conference, Hull City Hall.

BOOK
Music Theory and Analysis: The Limitations of Logic (New York: Garland, 1995). pp. i-xiii:1-268

SELECTED ARTICLES/CHAPTERS
“The Four Piano Sonatas: Past and Present Tensions”, in The Cambridge Companion to Tippett, eds. Gloag and Jones (Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 190 – 205.
“Musical Time and Eschatology” (50% co-authored), in Resonant Witness, ed. J. Begbie (Eerdmans, 2010), pp. 271-294.
"British Music since Britten", in Musicology and Sister Disciplines, edited by David Greer (Oxford University Press, 2000).
"Logic, Cognition and the Art of the Arbitrary", in Music, Mind and Science, edited by Suk Won Yi (Seoul National University Press, 1999), pp. 82-98.
"Tonal Elements and their Significance in Tippett's Sonata no.3 for Piano", in Tippett Studies, edited by David Clarke (Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 117-144.

Trustee of Canterbury Festival