Chess Playing Composers

[Richard James]

Former British Girls Chess Champion Emily Howard (she won or shared 8 titles between 1990 and 1996) will hear one of her compositions performed in a BBC Promenade Concert on Tuesday 21 August.

Another former British Junior Champion, Benjamin Wetherfield, won the BBC Young Composers' Competition in 2010.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Wasn't Andrew Hon's sister a seriously talented musician too? (I might be in error)

[Richard James]

Wasn't Andrew Hon's sister a seriously talented musician too? (I might be in error)

No idea. But Emily Howard's cousin Andrew Bamford was also a former British Junior Chess Champion.

[John Philpott]

I attended last night's Prom, and spotted the reference in the programme to Emily being a former British Junior Chess Champion - in this case something of an understatement. Fortunately I searched the Forum for her name and discovered this thread, so that I did not make the mistake of starting a new one entitled "Calculus of the Nervous System" which was the title of Emily's piece. Lasting about 15 minutes, this represented the work's UK première after it was first performed in Vienna last November, and was well received, with Emily taking a bow.

The programme notes included a reference to chess in respect of the work itself

Calculus was conceived as a sequence of "memories", Howard explains. Scientific, visual, aural and literary stimuli pervade the work. Musical ideas of each 'memory' are formed from the cross-fertilisation of several sources, such as neural circuits with poetry. Each 'memory' is associated with a line from Sir Geoffrey Hill's Clavics, of which some appear in the score; for example 'Chaos or chess' and 'And neurocratic hope'.

The concert can be heard for the next seven days at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/b01m0pm8

[Adam Raoof]

Heinz Herschmann plays in many chess events, and is a famous composer of film production music.

[Paolo Casaschi]

Ennio Morricone is known as a keen chess player, see for reference this chessbase article mentioning his involvement with the 2006 Turin chess Olympiad.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Heinz Herschmann plays in many chess events, and is a famous composer of film production music."

I bought a CD of his music and found it very good.

[Paul Sanders]

Wu Tang Clan's RZA is a chess player and activist. Here's his challenge to Jay-Z:

http://www.thechessdrum.net/blog/2011/1 ... ess-clash/

Sergei Prokofiev was also a noted chess player and member of the St Petersburg club:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=61923

The extraordinary musician and composer Chilly Gonzales made a short film about chess in which he starred:

http://chillygonzales.com/ivory-tower-movie/

It's everywhere!

[JustinHorton]

Former British Girls Chess Champion Emily Howard (she won or shared 8 titles between 1990 and 1996) will hear one of her compositions performed in a BBC Promenade Concert on Tuesday 21 August.

Howard's new Axon was on Radio Three last night. (Not to my taste, alas.)