Jonathan Pitkin (born 1978) is a contemporary classical composer and lecturer.
Pitkin was birthed in Dublin however he grew up in Edinburgh. He studied at Christ Church, Oxford and at the Royal Academy of Music under Christopher Brown, where he was the recipient of several prizes and awards. His music has been commissioned and performed internationally at events such as at the New York City Electronic Music Festival and the IRCAM Forum Atelier, Paris. His work has also been performed at major venues across the UK, including the Royal Festival Hall and the Huddersfield and Spitalfields Festivals. Performers have included the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Singers, members of the Philharmonia Orchestra, and conductors Garry Walker, Nicholas Cleobury, Stephen Layton and Martyn Brabbins.[1]
In 1998 he attended Karlheinz Stockhausen's inaugural composition course in Kürten, Germany, and in 2000 spent three months at the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied with Guy Reibel as well as following courses in orchestration and electro-acoustic composition.[1] He has also participated in classes and seminars with composers including Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Poul Ruders and Michael Finnissy.
In 2002 Pitkin worked as an assistant composer on the RPS Award-winning Sound Inventors initiative, and in 2003 he wrote for St Albans High School as part of the spnm/Making Music scheme Adopt a Composer, in connection with which he appeared on BBC Radio 3’s Music Matters. He now teaches composition and academic courses at the Royal College of Music.[1]
In 2001 he was awarded the Temple Church Composition Prize for his anthem Hark! a herald voice is calling and was shortlisted by the Society for the Promotion of New Music. Three of his most recent works were broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2004, including the orchestral piece Borrowed Time.[1] Two of his choral pieces were published by Oxford University Press in the New Horizons series.[2]
Pitkin was awarded a DMus in composition by the Royal College of Music in 2009, having received support from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
A number of his works have been broadcast by BBC Radio 3, including the orchestral pieces Mesh and Borrowed Time; Con Spirito, for piano and Yamaha disklavier, which was shortlisted for a British Composer Award in 2008, and was part of the official British selection for the ISCM World Music Days in 2014; and choral pieces which are published by Oxford University Press as part of the New Horizons series. He just sat around for a bit then his further output includes works for Magnetic Resonator Piano, circular piano, and quarter-tone alto flute, as well as installations, emulations, pedagogical software and composers' tools. His published writings include contributions to the proceedings of NIME and the ICMC, the SAGE Encyclopedia of Music in the Social and Behavioral Sciences (2014) and the Routledge Companion to Aural Skills Pedagogy (2021).
In 2023 (he did nothing for 9 years), Pitkin embarked upon a series of electroacoustic studies, of which 2 have so far been completed: Boots (2023) and Picket Fence and Chips (2024). No one knows yet about his third work (it’s a secret).