# Tim Parkinson

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**Tim Parkinson** (born 7 July 1973)[1] is a British [experimental composer](/source/Experimental_music), [pianist](/source/Pianist) and curator. His music has been commissioned and performed by ensembles including [Apartment House](/source/Apartment_House_(musical_ensemble)), the [Basel Sinfonietta](/source/Basel_Sinfonietta) and the [London Sinfonietta](/source/London_Sinfonietta), and soloists including [Anton Lukoszevieze](/source/Anton_Lukoszevieze) and [Rhodri Davies](/source/Rhodri_Davies_(musician)).[2][3] It has been broadcast on [BBC Radio 3](/source/BBC_Radio_3), [Resonance FM](/source/Resonance_FM), [WDR3](/source/Westdeutscher_Rundfunk) (Germany), and [Radio SRF 2 Kultur](/source/Radio_SRF_2_Kultur) (Switzerland). He is co-curator (alongside composer [John Lely](/source/John_Lely)) of the concert series Music We'd Like to Hear, which has run since 2005,[4][5] having previously organised concerts at the [British Music Information Centre](/source/British_Music_Information_Centre) in London from 1997 onwards.[6]

## Education

Parkinson attended [Bedford School](/source/Bedford_School)[7] before studying at [Worcester College, Oxford](/source/Worcester_College,_Oxford) and privately in [Dublin](/source/Dublin) with [Kevin Volans](/source/Kevin_Volans), and participating in the [Ostrava Days](/source/Ostrava_Days) 2001. In 2011 he was visiting Professor of Composition at the [Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts](/source/Jan%C3%A1%C4%8Dek_Academy_of_Music_and_Performing_Arts) in [Brno](/source/Brno) and has taught at [Ashmole Academy](/source/Ashmole_Academy). In 2018 he was appointed a creative fellow at the Samuel Beckett Research Centre at the [University of Reading](/source/University_of_Reading).[8]

## Style and career

His music has also been described as consisting of "melodious, somewhat Sixties sounds",[9] inspired by an older generation of British experimental composers, such as [Michael Parsons](/source/Michael_Parsons_(composer)).[10] His music exhibits a [collage](/source/Collage) approach, often juxtaposing the sounds of [found objects](/source/Found_object_(music)), various kinds of musical material, or snippets of speech.[11] Parkinson himself has described his compositional methods as follows:

What I want beforehand for myself is a large and unforeseen diversity of pitches and intervals – randomness, patterns, shapes – and of course there are countless ways to generate pitches… I’m quite inclusive about what pitches or [intervals](/source/Interval_(music)) are presented – I like [consonance and dissonance](/source/Consonance_and_dissonance) – so sometimes a sequence of notes might be reminiscent of other music, and of course it might not be reminiscent of anything to me, but it might to others… Often I have used the page as a structural unit, like a movement or a panel, and allowed the players to choose their own order of pages for a performance.[12]
Parkinson has also written music for [installation art](/source/Installation_art) projects, such as *sixty eight sounds for Welborne* (2005), *untitled installation (for Sound 323)* (2003), for a London record shop, and *ten brass* for St. George's Gardens, Bloomsbury, commissioned by the [London Borough of Camden](/source/London_Borough_of_Camden).[4]

Much of Parkinson's music has utilitarian titles, such as *orchestra piece* (2012) or is untitled, such as *untitled violin and piano* (2000)[13] and *untitled (winter 2002)*[14] and his official website has the [domain name](/source/Domain_name) www.untitledwebsite.com.

Since 2003, he has been one half of a duo, Parkinson Saunders, with composer [James Saunders](/source/James_Saunders_(composer)), performing mostly [indeterminate music](/source/Indeterminacy_(music)), using "any sound-producing means" (objects not usually considered musical instruments, such as cardboard boxes, paper cups or wind-up toys),[15] seated at two tables "like newsreaders".[6][12] Parkinson also performs as solo pianist and occasionally plays (as pianist) with ensembles Apartment House, and [Plus-Minus](/source/Plus-minus_ensemble), at venues that have included [Tate Modern](/source/Tate_Modern), the [Barbican Centre](/source/Barbican_Centre), and the [Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival](/source/Huddersfield_Contemporary_Music_Festival).[2]

## Recordings

Recordings of Parkinson's music have been released on labels including [Edition Wandelweiser](/source/Wandelweiser), [Another Timbre](/source/Another_Timbre), Metier and Lorelt.[4]

His album *Pleasure Island* was released by the label Slip Imprint in May 2019. This is Parkinson's first work explicitly conceived as an album and is titled after the 'Paese dei balocchi' ([Land of Toys](/source/Land_of_Toys)) in Carlo Collodi's *[The Adventures of Pinocchio](/source/The_Adventures_of_Pinocchio)* (1883), translated in the [1940 Disney film adaptation](/source/Pinocchio_(1940_film)) as 'Pleasure Island'.[16]

Parkinson's second solo album *Here Comes A Monster* was released in May 2020 on [Cafe Oto](/source/Cafe_Oto)'s Takuroku imprint, founded to distribute music made during the [COVID-19 pandemic](/source/COVID-19_pandemic). It features guest vocals by a wide range of artists and musicians, including [John Lely](/source/John_Lely), [Juliet Fraser](/source/Juliet_Fraser), [Angharad Davies](/source/Angharad_Davies), [Dominic Lash](/source/Dominic_Lash), [Laurence Crane](/source/Laurence_Crane), [Mira Benjamin](/source/Mira_Benjamin), [Steve Beresford](/source/Steve_Beresford), [Rhodri Davies](/source/Rhodri_Davies_(musician)), [James Saunders](/source/James_Saunders_(composer)), [JG Thirlwell](/source/JG_Thirlwell), and [Richard Dawson](/source/Richard_Dawson_(musician)).

## Time With People

Parkinson's opera, *Time With People* (2012–13) has been widely staged by various international companies, and received performances in London, Huddersfield, Los Angeles, Chicago, Oberlin, Ohio, New York (by Object Collection) and Brussels. A French translation has been staged in [La Chaux-de-Fonds](/source/La_Chaux-de-Fonds) and a German language version is in preparation for 2019.[17]

The opera is largely performed without typical musical instruments, on a stage strewn with rubbish, which is also used as a sound source, alongside the sounds of walking, speech, clapping, humming, and musical recordings.[18][19] It has been described by reviewers as "robotic incantations... [and] scenes of meaningless actions enacted amongst piles of garbage",[20] "[theatre of the absurd](/source/Theatre_of_the_Absurd) in eight scenes"[21] and "what opera might be like if you removed music and orchestra".[22]

## References

1. ["music we'd like to hear - curators"](http://www.musicwedliketohear.com/curators.html). *Musicwedliketohear.com*. Retrieved 2019-05-02.

1. ["WORD EVENT: a verbal notation symposium | Bath Spa University: Performance"](https://wordevent.wordpress.com/home/schedule/performance/). *WORD EVENT*. 2011-05-10. Retrieved 2019-05-02.

1. ["Tim Parkinson Interview – Trio with Objects :: Bang the Bore"](http://www.bangthebore.org/archives/5878). Retrieved 2019-05-02.

1. ["Tim Parkinson"](https://britishmusiccollection.org.uk/composer/tim-parkinson). *[British Music Collection](/source/British_Music_Collection)*. 2009-04-04. Retrieved 2019-05-02.

1. Harper, Ben (2019). "Music We'd Like To Hear, 2018 Season". *Tempo*. **73** (287): 94–96. [doi:10.1017/S0040298218000724](https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298218000724). [ISSN 0040-2982](https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0040-2982). [S2CID 149703163](https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:149703163)

1. ["Interview with Tim Parkinson - ddmmyy"](https://www.ddmmyyseries.com/Interview-with-Tim-Parkinson). *Ddmmyyseries.com*. Retrieved 2019-05-02.

1. *Music in independent schools*. Woodbridge, Suffolk, England. p. 255. ISBN 9781782043676. [OCLC 889264433](https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/889264433)

1. ["The Samuel Beckett Centre"](http://samuelbeckettcentre.weebly.com/1/category/all). *Samuel Beckett Centre*. Retrieved 2019-05-02.

1. ["State Of The Nation/ London Sinfonietta, South Bank Centre, London"](http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/state-of-the-nation-london-sinfonietta-south-bank-centre-london-9198498.html). *The Independent*. 2002-05-02. [Archived](https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220507/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/state-of-the-nation-london-sinfonietta-south-bank-centre-london-9198498.html) 7 May 2022 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2019-05-02.

1. Rutherford-Johnson, Tim (2015). "'Exposure 2014': EXAUDI, Bishopsgate Institute, London". *Tempo*. **69** (272): 72–74. [doi:10.1017/S0040298214001120](https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298214001120). [ISSN 0040-2982](https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0040-2982). [S2CID 145719120](https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:145719120)

1. Gottschalk, Jennie (2016-08-11). *Experimental music since 1970*. New York. p. 19. ISBN 9781628922486. [OCLC 919858326](https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/919858326)

1. *The Ashgate research companion to experimental music*. Farnham, England: Ashgate. 2009. pp. 337–342. ISBN 9780754662822. [OCLC 311310354](https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/311310354)

1. ["untitled violin and piano"](https://britishmusiccollection.org.uk/score/untitled-violin-and-piano). *[British Music Collection](/source/British_Music_Collection)*. 2009-04-21. Retrieved 2019-05-02.

1. ["untitled (winter 2002)"](https://britishmusiccollection.org.uk/score/untitled-winter-2002). *[British Music Collection](/source/British_Music_Collection)*. 2009-04-21. Retrieved 2019-05-02.

1. Gottschalk, Jennie (2016-08-11). *Experimental music since 1970*. New York. pp. 89–90. ISBN 9781628922486. [OCLC 919858326](https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/919858326)

1. ["Tim Parkinson | Happy Birthday"](https://www.pushinsky.com/video/tim-parkinson-happy-birthday/). *rick pushinsky*. Retrieved 2019-05-15.

1. ["tim parkinson - untitled website"](http://www.untitledwebsite.com/life/). *Untitledwebsite.com*. Retrieved 2019-05-02.

1. ["Boring Like A Drill. A Blog. » Time With People: warm-blooded reductionism"](http://www.cookylamoo.com/boringlikeadrill/2015/06/time-with-people-warm-blooded-reductionism.html). Retrieved 2019-05-02.

1. Gottschalk, Jennie (2016-08-11). *Experimental music since 1970*. New York. p. 20. ISBN 9781628922486. [OCLC 919858326](https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/919858326)

1. Hewett, Ivan (2015-12-18). ["Underwater music and a 'new definition of opera' at the London Contemporary Music Festival, review"](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/classical-music/underwater-music-and-a-new-definition-of-opera-at-the-london-con/). *The Telegraph*. [ISSN 0307-1235](https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0307-1235). Retrieved 2019-05-02.

1. Kilbey, Paul (2015). "Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival: 28–30 November 2014". *Tempo*. **69** (272): 67–69. [doi:10.1017/S0040298214001107](https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298214001107). [ISSN 0040-2982](https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0040-2982). [S2CID 146156261](https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:146156261)

1. Maddocks, Fiona (2015-12-20). ["London contemporary music festival; Shostakovich day – review"](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/dec/20/lcmf-london-contemporary-music-festival-review-shostakovich-day-cuarteto-casals--alexander-melnikov). *The Observer*. [ISSN 0029-7712](https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0029-7712). Retrieved 2019-05-02.

## External links

- [www.untitledwebsite.com](http://www.untitledwebsite.com) – official site

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Tim Parkinson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Parkinson) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Parkinson?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.