Patrick Ozzard-Low

Patrick Ozzard-Low has been active as a composer for over 30 years, since his first orchestral work ‘Saudades’ won first prize in the MidNAG Composer's Competition in 1976. From 1979 to 1981 he studied composition privately with Bill Hopkins - Jean Barraqué’s English protégé and a pupil of Messiaen and Nono.

Ozzard-Low has composed extensively for the piano - his oeuvre contains a number of large-scale Piano Sonatas. These have been performed by the pianists Nicolas Hodges and Jonathan Powell, as well as by the composer himself, in festivals in the UK and Brazil, receiving considerable critical acclaim. Piano Sonata No.2 was described by The Times as 'arresting for the almost Brahmsian felicity of its none the less barn-storming avant-garde idiom'. In another review, Sonata Breve ‘of all the new pieces, was the only one which seemed passionately concerned about how the music was structured'. He has also written vocal, chamber, orchestral and electroacoustic works.

Patrick Ozzard-Low founded the Centre for New Musical Instruments (CNMI), in 2000, at London Guildhall University (now London Metropolitan), following completion of wide-ranging studies commissioned by the Arts Council of England, and by the Winston Churchill Trust, for research throughout the Americas and Europe. He has given over forty invited lectures in the USA, Brazil, France, Germany and Holland on research concerning radical new designs and technologies for acoustic orchestral instruments. In Chicago, in 2001, the Acoustical Society of America held a special session on new musical instruments, in response to Ozzard-Low’s research. His book, 'New Instruments for New Music', a catalogue raisonné of new instruments and technologies, was published in 2008.

Ozzard-Low is presently Affiliate Lecturer at Dartington College of Arts (Devon, England); he has also taught at Dartington International Summer School.He holds a degree in Philosophy, and has gained a Doctorate in composition with Michael Finnissy at the University of Southampton.