Sinan Savaskan's output consists of modern orchestral, chamber, and performance arts related contemporary music.

Biographical Notes

Sinan C Savaskan(b 1954) works and lives in London. His music has been commissioned and performed in over twenty countries by some of the foremost performers of contemporary music, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, John Harle and Myrha Saxophone Quartet, the Lontano Ensemble, the SEM Orchestra/Petr Kotik, the Balanescu String Quartet, the Gemini Ensemble, the Smith Quartet, Tim Brady, Sydney Alpha Ensemble, Yvar Mikhashoff, MusICA series of the Institute of Contemporary Arts/London, Martin Ball and Cambridge New Music Players.

He was the composer of the title track of the London Musicians Collective's first recording in 1981. He won the 1988 Dio Fund Award for Composition with his quartet for saxophones, The Street - originally commissioned and premiered by John Harle with his Myrha Saxophone Quartet.

Sinan Savaskan was the musical director of a film on the life of the Renaissance composer Gesualdo, directed by Bernardo Bertolluci and produced by Jeremy Thomas.
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Sinan Savaskan received a grant of $25 000 from the American foundation for Contemporary Arts Award in 2000. Each year the Foundation invites distinguished artists and arts professionals to propose on a confidential basis exceptional individuals, performing groups, and artists' collectives whom they feel deserve and would benefit at this point in their careers from a grant in support of their work.

the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters elected Savaskan to Executive Committee membership, October 2002.

Oedipus Rex
the University of Cambridge's three yearly production performed entirely in classical Greek.
Performances at Arts Theatre, Cambridge, 11th - 16th October 2004.
His other music for the theatre in recent years included Aristophanes' Lysistrata, The Birds and The Frogs; Euripides' The Trojan Women; Sophocles' Philoctetes and Oedipus at Colonus; Plautus' The Rope; Molière's The Miser; Shakespeare's Pericles; Claudel's Partage de Midi

SYMPHONY No. 4 'Algorithm of Obsession'
completed, April 2003, performance preparations in progress.

Three Sea Epigrams for SATB choir has now been recorded and is awaiting release.

Symphony no 3 'La Rosa Enflorece and the English Cadence',
commissioned by the SEM Orchestra/Petr Kotik had its premiere in New York on 21 June 1998.
It was featured in BBC Radio 3 "BETWEEN THE EARS" Programme broadcast on Sunday, 19 May 2002 in a programme entitled "The Rise and Fall of The English Cadence" presented by Jeremy Summerly and produced by Antony Pitts. Listen to it at www.bbc.co.uk/radio3

SYMPHONY No. 2 The Age of Analysis
BBC SO commission, conducted by Martyn Brabbins and broadcast on BBC R3 Feb.1999 was featured at the International Rostrum of Composers, Paris, June 2002.

'UNIQUE STRANDS, CIRCULAR FUNCTIONS &
for 14 players was premiered on 17 Dec 2000 by the Contemporary Arts Ensemble, London and conducted by Zsolt Nagy during the second event of acoustICA series at the ICA, London.
A new version with piano premiered in Japan by Ensemble Contemporary, Tokyo on 11 DECEMBER 2001. The following year, the work was a feature of the Asian Composers' League Conference on 6th May 2002 in Seol, Korea.

The Land of the Three Fires
was premiered at the York Contemporary Arts Festival commissioned by the YCAF, performed by The Contemporary Arts Ensemble/London (directed by the composer) was the final item in this five-day long festival on 17th June 1999.

A BBC Symphony Orchestra commission, Three Dances for Orchestra Op 31 (1996) (three dance interludes from 'Venom', an opera) was selected as the featured work for the Manchester Composers' Forum. It was performed as the final work of the event on 26 October 1997 by the RNCM Orchestra under Malcolm Layfield. A repeat performance took place two days later in the same hall in a concert for general public. The work was received extremely enthusiastically by this audience of clasical music lovers with very little experience of contemporary music.

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