Mark-Anthony Turnage

Life and career[edit]

Mark-Anthony Turnage was born in Corringham, Essex on 10 June 1960.^[1] He began composing at age nine and at fourteen began studying at the junior section of the Royal College of Music.^[2]


His initial musical studies were with Oliver Knussen, John Lambert, and later with Gunther Schuller.^[3] He also has been strongly influenced by jazz, in particular by the work of Miles Davis, and has composed works featuring jazz performers, including John Scofield, Peter Erskine, John Patitucci, and Joe Lovano.


Turnage has composed numerous orchestral and chamber works, and three full-length operas. Greek, composed with the encouragement of Hans Werner Henze and first performed in 1988 at the Munich Biennale, is based on Steven Berkoff's adaptation of Oedipus Rex. The Silver Tassie, first performed in 2000, is based on the play by Seán O'Casey. Anna Nicole, with a libretto by Richard Thomas and first performed in 2011, relates the rise and fall of Playboy model and media celebrity Anna-Nicole Smith. His opera for family audiences, Coraline, is based on the dark fantasy novel by Neil Gaiman, and was staged by The Royal Opera at the Barbican Theatre in 2018.^[4] His operas have been performed around the world including notably by New York City Opera (2013), Opernhaus Zurich (2019), Theater Dortmund (2013), Theater Freiburg (2018) and the Opera de Lille (2018).


Other works include Three Screaming Popes (after the paintings by Francis Bacon), Your Rockaby (a concerto for saxophone and orchestra), Yet Another Set To (a concerto for trombone and orchestra, dedicated to Christian Lindberg), and From the Wreckage (a concerto for trumpet and orchestra, written for Håkan Hardenberger). Blood on the Floor (1993–1996), for jazz quartet and large ensemble, contains nine sections with a shared theme of drug addiction, the section titled "Elegy for Andy" being a lament for the loss of his brother in a drug-related death.^[2] More recent Turnage scores have included the orchestral work Remembering, conducted by Simon Rattle in 2017 with the London Symphony Orchestra and Berlin Philharmonic; double violin concerto Shadow Walker for soloists Vadim Repin and Daniel Hope, performed by the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra in 2018; and Testament (2018), his setting of Ukrainian texts for soprano and orchestra.^[4] He has composed song cycles for a number of celebrated singers including Sarah Connolly, Gerald Finley and Allan Clayton.


Turnage's work Blood on the Floor was choreographed by Wayne McGregor for Paris Opera Ballet in 2011 and in the same year he composed the score for Undance, collaborating with McGregor and visual artist Mark Wallinger. In 2012 Trespass, a ballet choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon and Alistair Marriott with score by Turnage, was first performed by The Royal Ballet. In 2017 he composed the score for Strapless, choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon for The Royal Ballet. Other choreographers that have made ballets to Turnage's works include Heinz Spoerli (Zurich Ballet 2007 and Staatsballet Berlin 2012), Ashley Page (Rambert Dance Company 2013), Jorma Elo (Hubbard Street Dance Chicago 2007) and Gregor Zollig (Tanztheater Bielefeld 2006).


Turnage was the first Radcliffe Composer in Association with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from 1989 until 1993 and between 2000 and 2003 was the BBC Symphony Orchestra's first Associate Composer. He was Composer in Residence with the London Philharmonic Orchestra from 2005 until 2010. Between 2006 and 2010, Turnage was a co-composer-in-residence of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a position he held alongside Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov.


In Autumn 2005, he was appointed the Royal College of Music's Research Fellow in Composition. In 2015 he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to music.^[5]


His partner is the director Rachael Hewer.