Joe Cutler

For more than 20 years, Joe Cutler has been an unclassifiable figure on the UK contemporary music scene, working on the cusps of the contemporary classical, post-minimalist and jazz scenes.

With collaborators ranging from the London Symphony Orchestra to Evan Parker and Orkest de Ereprijs to Vince Mendoza, his music has been performed in over 40 countries and on six continents including performances at festivals and venues such as Bang-on-a-Can Music Marathon (New York), Gaudeamus Music Week (Amsterdam and Utrecht), Opera City (Tokyo), Musik Monat (Basle), Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), London Jazz Festival and the BBC Proms.

His has worked both in the concert hall and outside, collaborating with visual artists such as Tom Dale, Jaap Drupsteen and Gary Ward and writing the incidental music for the National Theatre, London’s multi-award winning production of Charlotte Jones’ Humble Boy which subsequently transferred to the West End and Broadway. Ping!, a collaboration with the Coull String Quartet, Fusion Table Tennis Club and artist Tom Dale, was one of the highlights of the 2012 London Cultural Olympiad

In 2008 a portrait CD entitled Bartlebooth was released on NMC and was one of Gramophone Magazine’s Top 20 Releases of the Year. This was followed in 2014 by Boogie Nights released on Birmingham Record Company. A third solo disc is scheduled for release on NMC in 2018.

In 2008 he was awarded the British Composer Award in the chamber music category for Folk Music, written for the Smith Quartet, whilst in 2016 he received the British Composer Award in the jazz category for Karembeu’s Guide to the Complete Defensive Midfielder, a commission from Emulsion Sinfonietta.

Since 2000 he has been a founder member of the collective Noszferatu, and since 2005 he has been Head of Composition at Birmingham Conservatoire.

‘This is an essential purchase: Cutler may not make contemporary music loveable again, but he does make it unignorable and that is what really matters.’

Gramophone Magazine, September 2008