Melvyn Poore

Melvyn Poore has worked in various situations as tubist, improviser, composer, sound designer and sound diffuser, researcher in Computer Music, computer programmer, recording engineer. Born in England, educated at the University of Birmingham, he moved to Germany in 1991, at first working on his own performance practice projects at the Centre for Art and Media Technolgy ( ZKM) Karlsruhe. He has been active for over 25 years in both the improvised music and New Music scenes: one of his main artistic contributions being the integration of live electronics with acoustic instruments.

He has travelled far and wide throughout Europe, the United States and Australia, performing, broadcasting, teaching, leading workshops in schools, on beaches and street corners, in canteens, colleges, clubs, castles and even in concert halls. Through his co-operation with composers he has considerably enlarged the repertoire of the tuba. He played - amongst others - with Barry Guy’s London Jazz Composers Orchestra, Ensemble Modern, Radu Malfatti’s “Ohr Kiste”, the Cambrian and the Fine Arts Brass Quintets; he continues to be a member of the MusikFabrik NRW, Reinhold Friedl’s Zeitkratzer, Wolfgang Fuchs’s King Übü Örchestrü.

Highlights of his activities during the last few years:
•sound design and sound diffusion for Henri Pousseur’s opera “Votre Faust” (musikFabrik/Oper Bonn);
•Arrangements of music by Lou Reed for the Berlin-based ensemble Zeitkratzer;
•Visiting Professor in Realtime Electro-acoustic Composition and Performance at the Royal College of Music, London;
•German premiere of Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s “The Cry of Anubis” for solo tuba and orchestra (NDR Hannover);
•Sound design for musikFabrik’s “Ask Little Auto”, an evening of music by John Cage, directed by Reinhild Hoffmann;
•“Nesting Time” for tuba and live electronics, commissioned by Radio Bremen for Pro Musica Nova;
•music to Shakespeare’s “A Winter’s Tale” in Theater Oberhausen and Theater Bonn;
•music to Martin Speer’s “Jagdszenen aus Niederbayern” in Theater Bonn
•David Lang’s “Are You Experienced” for electric tuba and ensemble with the musikFabrik in Cologne.

Photo by Klaus Rudolph

Contact: Melvyn Poore

last changed: 08 November 2004