The music of Edmund Campion explores relationships between sound and space. He spent his formative years at IRCAM in Paris, where he composed several works including the full-scale ballet Playback, Nat-Sel, a meta-compositional environment for piano and computer, Losing Touch for vibraphone and electronics, and Corail for saxophone and interactive computer system. Campion is also known for orchestral composition, having recently been the Composer in Residence with the Santa Rosa Symphony. The Last Internal Combustion Engine, commissioned by the Santa Rosa Symphony for the opening of the Green Music Center in Sonoma, was premiered by SRS with Kronos Quartet as soloists. Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle called the piece "a vivid and richly imagined concerto."
Edmund Campion’s works are heard in concert halls worldwide and a monograph CD by the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players is available on Albany records. He is currently working on a co-commission from the Ensemble Intercontemporain for a collaborative piece with audio-visual artist Kurt Hentschlager. The new work Cluster X will be premiered at the Cité de la Musique in Paris in 2015 followed by a tour to the United States with a stop at Cal Performances/Berkeley in November of 2015.
Les Percussion des Strasbourg ensemble recently released Wavelike and Diverse on their fiftieth anniversary CD set. Recent premieres include Auditory Fiction (2011), commissioned by Societe Generale for Radio France, Small Wonder (The Butterfly Effect) (2012), commissioned by the Serge Koussevitzky Foundation for the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and Auditory Fiction II (2014) written for the ECO Ensemble for premiere at the Venice Biennale for Music. In 2012, Campion was awarded the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship given by the American Academy of Arts and Letters to a composer of exceptional gift.
Edmund Campion is currently Professor of Music Composition at UC Berkeley and Co-Director at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies. His website is edmundcampion.com.
[from program for January 19, 2015 concert]
