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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Keith Burstein (born Keith Burston, Brighton, UK, 1957) is an English composer, conductor and music theorist. He is noted for his championing of tonal music as a valid contemporary composing style and for the humanitarian dimension of his compositions.
Keith Burstein's early musical approach was informed by the culture of atonalism in which he was educated at the Royal College of Music, and his early compositions were written in the atonal style. Burstein made a dramatic shift towards composing tonally during the late 1980s. In a 2002 interview with The Independent newspaper, he reflected "What had happened to me was a sort of Damascene conversion, I suppose. I suddenly saw that atonalism was a dead end. Once you accept that melody is everywhere, and always has been, in folk music and pop and rock, you see that it's not reactionary to write a tune.".
Keith Burstein was born in the English coastal town of Brighton as Keith Burston, one of the two sons of orchestral violinists Samuel and Barbara Burston. The family surname was an Anglicised version of Burstein, the original Russian-Jewish family name of Samuel Burston's ancestors (who emigrated to the UK in the late nineteenth century). Both Samuel and Barbara Burston had played in the orchestras for the Royal Opera House and Sadler's Wells Theatre as well as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the BBC Ulster Orchestra. They also played in the Hallé Orchestra, Manchester (during which time Samuel Burston had enjoyed a close rapport with the conductor Sir John Barbirolli.)
Keith Burstein reassumed his original family name in the late 1980s, at the same time that he was discovering his own voice as a composer. He has commented that this was part of a process of self-discovery at the time, and not related to religious beliefs. However, he has also noted that his Jewish ancestry perhaps formed a "subliminal linkage" to his decision to compose the Holocaust-themed choral work The Year’s Midnight in 2000.
Originally tutored in piano by Hove-based music teacher Christine Pembridge, Keith Burstein attended the Royal College of Music from 1977 (where he held two scholarships). While attending the college, he studied composition with Bernard Stevens and John Lambert. During this time he was exposed for the first time to the contemporary classical music of Karlheinz Stockhausen and Pierre Boulez, and became a committed enthusiast for atonal and experimental music. After graduation, he studied with Jonathan Harvey on a Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust bursary. Burstein has commented that at the time of his studies there was widespread talk of a "malaise", or "vacuum" in contemporary classical music, but that there were no simultaneous ideas regarding how this problem might be solved.
Keith Burstein initially made his name as a conductor and commissioner of contemporary music - primarily as founder of chamber ensemble The Grosvenor Group (not to be confused with the property company of the same name). This ensemble existed between 1983 and 1993 and performed works by Schoenberg, Webern, Stockhausen, Harrison Birtwistle, Edward Elgar, Brian Ferneyhough, Oliver Knussen, Mark-Anthony Turnage and Luciano Berio among others. Burstein has subsequently described the ensemble as "an attempt to explore the landscape and to find a pathway forward". The group received considerable critical acclaim during its existence. In a 1986 review of one of their concerts, The Times newspaper commented that "they played as though their very lives depended upon it."
However, Burstein's priorities were beginning to alter due to his growing interest as a composer in reassessing and reincorporating tonality into contemporary music. Although the Grosvenor Group performed three of Burstein's compositions during its lifetime, these were atonal works inspired by his education at the Royal College of Music. Burstein would eventually sideline his conducting work (and end his commissioning work) in favour of full-time composing.
After the dissolution of the Grosvenor Group, several members went on to join the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Burstein continued to compose for varied groups of musicians, covering ensemble pieces, choral and solo vocal music and large-scale orchestral works. Some members of the Grosvenor Group would continue to collaborate with him as part of an occasional musical group called the Keith Burstein Ensemble. |