Orfordness
Zubin Kanga (piano), with Christopher Redgate (oboe), the Kreutzer Quartet, Neil Heyde (cello) and Milton Mermikides (electronics).
Music by David Gorton
British composer working in the “more radical domain” of British music, writing across microtonal ensembles, solo performer series, amateur choirs and the ABRSM Spectrum series.
Browse the catalogueFeatured works
Commissions have come from ensembles including the London Sinfonietta, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Exposé, Jane’s Minstrels, CHROMA, HERMES and the Kreutzer Quartet. A selection from the catalogue:
- Three Deleuzabelli Variations (XII, XIII & XIV) — ensemble, c.6 minutes.
- Lachrymae Variations — fifteen solo strings, c.25 minutes.
- Caprices for solo violin — nine numbered works, c.15 minutes.
- Burgh Castle — premiered 11 & 23 November 2015 at The Forge and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.
Recordings
Most recent music is recorded on the Métier label. David Gorton: Orfordness (Métier msv28550) was produced by David Gorton, with sound engineering by Jonathan Haskell and Kirsten Cowie and booklet notes by Michael Hooper.
Trajectories
Music by David Gorton, released on the Métier label.
Variations on John Dowland
A current project: a CD recording of works drawing on the music of John Dowland, with guitar player Stefan Östersjö and Longbow Ensemble.
About the composer
David Gorton studied composition with Harrison Birtwistle and Simon Bainbridge at Durham University, King’s College London and the Royal Academy of Music. From 2004–06 he held a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship for a project on musical time, structure and performance.
He is Associate Professor of Music at the Royal Academy of Music, University of London, and an associate researcher at the Orpheus Institute in Ghent. His compositions have been performed throughout Europe and America, in China and in Vietnam.
Selected dates
Performances, publications and presentations from recent years.
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2016
Alma Redemptoris Mater for choir with solo soprano published by NoteNova publishing (January 2016); title of Associate Professor of the University of London awarded at the Royal Academy of Music (February 2016).
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2015
Burgh Castle received its first performances by Roderick Chadwick and the CHROMA ensemble at The Forge and at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival on 11 & 23 November 2015.
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2015
Presentations with Stefan Östersjö on “Austerity Measures I” took place at IRCAM, Paris, and CARPA4, Helsinki, 8–13 June 2015.
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2015
Three Deleuzabelli Variations were first performed by the Hermes Ensemble in Antwerp on 17 March 2015.
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2012
Hlówung for Sutton Hoo and Rosetta Caprice were performed at the Victoria and Albert Museum on 14 September 2012; a Royal Academy of Music and Vanderbilt University exchange project took place in Nashville in February 2012.
This site appears to be a personal archive of musical work, gathering selected performances, publications, and presentations from recent years into one place. Rather than a formal concert listing or a commercial booking page, it reads like a chronological portfolio — a record of what has been composed, premiered, published, and discussed. Visitors can browse entries year by year and get a sense of the trajectory of the work, from choral pieces and chamber music to academic presentations given at international venues. The emphasis falls on documentation and reflection, not promotion.
Within the entries, a recurring thread is the meeting of composition and scholarship. Titles of Associate Professor recognition, published choral works, and collaborations on austerity-themed research presentations all appear side by side, suggesting a career that spans the concert hall, the page, and the lecture room. Performances noted at festivals, galleries, and music centres indicate work circulated through established contemporary music networks. The presentation entries, including appearances with other musicians, point to ongoing discussion of the ideas behind the notes as much as the notes themselves.
The visual design follows a restrained, editorial approach that suits an archive. A muted mauve block anchors the hero area, while white backgrounds and near-black text keep long passages of prose readable. Serif display type gives the headings a scholarly, printed feel, contrasted with a clean sans-serif for interface labels and body detail. Generous vertical spacing between sections breathes air into the timeline, and thin light borders do little more than quietly separate adjacent form fields. Softly rounded buttons and input shapes add warmth without ornament.
The site also carries the standard infrastructure of a well-considered personal domain, including pages addressing copyright, rights, privacy, and policy alongside the main content. Such pages matter for a musician whose work circulates through publishers, performers, and festivals: they set expectations about how material may be used, how personal data is handled, and what rights over recorded or published work remain with the composer. Together with the archive itself, these small notices give the impression of a careful, professionally minded site maintained by the artist rather than a template.
Caprices for violin
Nine numbered caprices for solo violin, duration c.15 minutes, with individual performances by Peter Sheppard Skærved at the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Tate St Ives, Wilton’s Music Hall, St Paul’s Cathedral, the Barnes Auditorium in Cornell and the Janacek Academy in Brno.
| Work | Detail |
|---|---|
| Caprice I (Rosetta) | For solo violin |
| Caprices II–VI | For solo violin |
| Caprice VII (Only Connect) | Performed at the National Portrait Gallery, 18 March 2011 |
| Caprice VIII (Lachrymae) | For solo violin |
| Caprice IX (Farnaby’s Fancy) | For solo violin |
Contact
For enquiries about scores, commissions, recordings or research projects, write to David Gorton at info@davidgortonmusic.com.
Performers, ensembles and academic institutions are welcome to get in touch about the catalogue and the Caprices series.