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Samuel Hogarth (b. 1984) started composing at a very early age and received
his first commission, aged 15, from Boosey & Hawkes, for a solo piano piece
(‘Life of a Shadow’) published in their Easy 20th-Century Piano Collection.
While still at school he also wrote his Sinfonietta for the Junior Royal
Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra (première conducted by Peter Stark) and
participated on the National Youth Orchestra Composers’ Course, writing a
number of pieces for members of the orchestra, culminating in his Bull
Profile Series, based on a painting by Roy Lichtenstein, for the NYO
Sinfonietta (premièred 2001). In the same year, his piece for SATB & piano,
Hokarah, won the national Fresh Air competition, run by the St. George’s
Singers, for a new choral work. During these years he studied with Adam Gorb
and Matthew Taylor at the Junior RAM and with Paul Patterson and Diana
Burrell on the NYO courses.
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From 2001-4 Samuel read music at New College, Oxford, where he wrote three
pieces premièred by the New College Choir, under the direction of Edward
Higginbottomm, and several works for Ensemble Isis, the university’s new
music group, which he later directed for a year. He also undertook the first
James Bowman Commission for New Chamber Opera, writing a short piece of
music theatre for countertenor and piano (‘The Evils of Tobacco’, adapted
from Chekhov’s monologue), and wrote the first in a series of settings from
Tennyson’s In Memoriam for baritone Laurence Cramp. While at Oxford Samuel
studied composition with Robert Saxton.
After finishing his undergraduate with the top first in his year and a
university Gibbs Prize, Samuel read for the M.St. in musicology, in which he
graduated with distinction in 2005. Since then he has been based in London,
working as a freelance musician. He wrote a specially requested work for
oboe and piano for James Turnbull, a contemporary from the National Youth
Orchestra and later at Oxford, which was premièred with former NCO
repetiteur Craig White at the Royal Academy of Music in November 2005.
As well as writing the new NCO commission, Samuel is busy with many other
activities and has recently been appointed College Musician at Queens’
College, Cambridge. In this post he will be responsible for conducting the
college music society’s choir and orchestra, continuing a conducting career
that has run in parallel with composition for some years. He will also work
with musicians in the college to develop their performing and other musical
interests. Meanwhile, he performs in many venues as a jazz pianist, recently
appearing at The Vortex and Smollensky’s on the Strand, and working with
members of the Oxford-based Holywell Quartet has performed some of Schubert’
s chamber music for piano and strings. Samuel also teaches at the Junior
RAM.
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