Jim Aitchison
Over the last decade Jim Aitchison has been recognised for creating responses in music to visual art and for his visual score work. He has initiated encounters with many artists, including Gerhard Richter, Antony Gormley, Doris Salcedo, Peter Randall-Page, Anish Kapoor, Richard Deacon, John Hoyland, Terry Frost and Jeremy Annear.
He is also the first and only composer to be given a fellowship by the Henry Moore Foundation. Recently his work has appeared on the Tate Channel, at the Presteigne Festival, LSO St Luke’s and on disc with Retorica on the NMC label, and as part of the multimedia tour in the Rothko Room at Tate Modern.
Past projects include a large scale response to the art of Gerhard Richter in 2014, supported by Arts Council England, the PRSF, Falmouth University, the Royal Academy of Music, Goldsmiths and Yamaha UK, a commission from Tate Modern to create music for their 2008/2009 Mark Rothko exhibition, a substantial performance event for his work with Antony Gormley, Memory Field, at Kings Place and the Royal Academy of Music, responses performed at the Royal Academy of Arts to Anish Kapoor’s remarkable 2009 exhibition, a project with Retorica inspired by Kazakh textiles for SOAS and the Brunei Gallery, responses to the Shibboleth installation by Doris Salcedo performed by violinist Peter Sheppard Skærved in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, and to sculpture by Antony Gormley performed at the artist’s studio. He has also created work in response to artist Jeremy Annear, and for performances at the Modern Art Museum of Forth Worth in Dallas, the British Museum, Tate St Ives, the 2D2N Festival in Odessa and The Henry Moore Institute.
The composer is an Associate Lecturer at Falmouth University’s Academy of Music and Theatre Arts, has just completed an Honorary Research Fellowship at the Royal Academy of Music, and work as a composer and researcher as part of the Online Orchestra project funded by the AHRC at Falmouth University.