Alwynne Pritchard

Alwynne Pritchard (born 1968, Glasgow) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Bergen, Norway. She is of Scottish, Welsh, English, Polish and Irish heritage. Alwynne is the daughter of the composer Gwyn Pritchard. She studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London and has a Master's degree in Musicology and a PhD in Composition from the University of Bristol. Her work combines her skills as a composer, singer, actor, physical performer and violinist with her interest in text, costume and video. Alwynne Pritchard performing DOG/GOD at the 2015 Festspillene i Bergen (Bergen International Festival). Photograph by Thor Brødreskift. Alwynne's performances, compositions and installations have been presented around the world and in 2005 her electro-acoustic composition Decoy, created at the Experimentalstudio des SWR in Freiburg for the Donaueschingen Musiktage, received the special prize given by the Foundation Ton Bruynèl, STEIM and the Foundation GAUDEAMUS. In 2019, she was nominated by BIT Teatergarasjen for the Bergens Tidende Audience Award (Publikumspris) and in 2024, her work Counting Backwards was nominated for Work of the Year (Årets Verk) by the Norwegian Society of Composers.

In 2016, Alwynne was awarded the commission to create a fanfare or ‘marker’ to celebrate the opening of the University of Bergen’s newly established Department of Art, Music and Design, for which she created the book of text scores, up without an insistent casting away. In 2015, she co-founded the music-theatre company Neither Nor.

Alwynne's professional life has also included stints as a presenter for BBC Radio 3, a composition teacher at Trinity Laban in London and as Artistic Director of both the Borealis festival and BIT20 Ensemble. Her music is published by Verlag Neue Musik, Berlin.

Selected concert composition premieres

Institutions of the Flesh, Alpaca Ensemble, Avgarde concert series, Bergen, 2021 and nyMusikk, Only Connect Trondheim, 2023 Ark, Currentes Ensemble and the Museum of Natural History, Bergen, 2021 Heart of Glass, Zubin Kanga, London Contemporary Music Festival, 2019 Nostalgia, Sonar Quartett, Villa Elisabeth, Berlin, 2019 Public People, Splitter Orchester and ensemble mosaik, Radialsystem V, Berlin, 2018 From a Distant Far Inside, WITHIN II, Bergen Assembly, Bergen, 2016 Rockaby, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra with composer as vocalist, Tectonics festival, Glasgow, 2016 Glorvina, fixed media, BBC Proms, London, 2012 Graffiti, Christian Dierstein and EXPERIMENTALISTUDIO des SWR, Heinrich-Strobel-Saal, SWR studio, Freiburg, 2007 • Map of the Moon, Nicolas Hodges and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Glasgow, 2007 Decoy, Ensemble Recherche and EXPERIMENTALSTUDIO des SWR, Donaueschinger Musiktage (SWR), 2004 Der Glücklose Engel, Apartment House, University of Bristol, 1999 Der Zwerg, Nicolas Hodges, University of Oxford Schubert Bicentenary Symposium, Denis Arnold Hall, 1997

Nocturnal, BBC, Arditti String Quartet, Institute for Contemporary Art, London, 1995

Music-theatre/Interdisciplinary works and performances

All Dressed Up And Nowhere To Go (with Susanne Zapf), Hilbertraum, Berlin, 2024 Dream Boat, for B-Open, Beffen, Bergen, 2024 Nature aggressive, music for live illustration performance by Baptise Deyrail and Domizia Tosatto, Les Rencentres de Barizière, 2024 Plañideras: Historia de convertir una tragedia en producto, music (with Thorolf Thuestad—Neither Nor) for dance performance, tour of Spanish venues, 2024 Unwriting: Part 1 (Departure), nyMusikk, Oslo, 2023 Living Room (film version), ensemble consord, 2023 Counting Backwards, BIT20 Ensemble, Borealis festival, Bergen, 2023 MONGREL - Dogs, Gods, Bitches and Demons, commissioned and other solo pieces presented in combination with own works, Dimitira festival, Thessaloniki, 2022 Beethoven Ascending 360, installation, Klangzeit Münster, 2022 EDEN, collaborative dance project with Julia Koch, Ulm Moves!, Roxy Ulm and Tanznetz, E-Werk, Freiburg, 2022 Gåologi, collaborative project with Eva Pfitzenmaier, BIT Teatergarasjen, Bergen, 2022 Intonation, final performance for the University of Bergen Wheels within Wheels Artistic Research programme, Bergen International Festival (FiB), 2018 Stamp Club Report 1980, Kammerkoret GNEIS and friends, Østre and Visningsrom USF, Bergen, 2018 Hospice Lazy, Alpaca trio and Alwynne Pritchard, Dokkhuset, Trondheim, 2014; Avant Garden Trondheim and E-Werk Freiburg, 2017; and USF Verftet, Bergen, 2018 We, three (after Samuel Beckett's Come and Go), trio Alpaca, Avant Garden, Trondheim and E-Werk, Freiburg, 2017 Regnsvart on texts by Erland Nødtvedt, GNEIS chamber choir, Borealis festival, Bergen, 2017 Vitality Forms 5 and 6, Alwynne Pritchard, Bastard Assignments: New Teeth 1, London, 2016 Vitality Forms 3 and 4, Alwynne Pritchard, Forum Kunst und Kultur, Essen, 2015 Vitality Forms 2, Ensemble CRUSH, Schloss Benrath, Düsseldorf, 2015

Vitality Forms 1, Alwynne Pritchard, Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, 2015 The Art of Violin Playing (A Neither Nor production), work-in-progress performance, o espaço do tempo, Montemor-o-Novo and Cornerteateret, Bergen, 2015 Homing (A Neither Nor production), Adam de la Cour, Claudia Klasicka, Anders Ohnstad, Thorolf Thuestad and Veronica Thorseth, Borealis festival, Bergen, 2015 Oh no love, you're not alone, Alpaca ensemble + Andreas Elvenes, video, Dokkhuset, Trondheim and Soddjazz festival, 2013 Erika married the Eiffel Tower, ensemble recherche + video, Ultima festival, Oslo and Muzikprotokoll, Graz, 2013 Oslo Emmaus, Ensemble Fanfaronner and video, Borealis festival, Odda, 2011 Objects of Desire, ensemble recherche, Amsterdam, 2010 Source of energy, routes of power, ensemble Scratch the Surface, Kleine Thermin, Kempten, 2010 Flutterby, POW ensemble, Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam, 2009 Don't touch me, you don't know where I’ve been, Bjørnar Habbestad, Alwynne Pritchard, asamisimasa ensemble and electronics (Thorolf Thuestad at BEK, Bergen), Borealis festival, Bergen, 2008 Frame, Athelas ensemble, electronics (developed at IEM, Graz) and film, European Integra program (Culture 2000), PLEX theatre, Copenhagen, 2007

Theatre

Issue Commune (composer and performer), Scènes Théâtre Cinéma, Barizière des Possibles, 2024 Underground (co-composer with Thorolf Thuestad and actor), Scènes Théâtre Cinéma/Neither Nor production, TNG, Lyon and Cornertateret, Bergen, 2019 Hamlet Machine (co-composer with Thorolf Thuestad and actor), Scènes Théâtre Cinéma/Neither Nor, Théâtre du Point du Jour, Lyon, 2016 Bull's eye (actor), Scènes Théâtre Cinéma, Marseille, 2013

Installations and exhibitions

Parlour, collaborative installation with NEOQUARTET (Gdańsk), for Lydgalleriet, Bergen, 2021 up without an insistent casting away, site-specific performance for the opening ceremony, Department of Fine Art, and the Department of Design for the faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design, University of Bergen, 2017 and 2018 Guardian Angels, exhibition of portrait photographs by Alwynne Pritchard, The Cello Factory, London, 2013 Tear me, eat me, burn me, laser-cut paper, mirror, backlighting, 4 x framed graphic-score-inspired pieces, Visningssrommet USF, Borealis festival, Notations exhibition, 2013 Don't touch me, you don't know where I've been, installation version, KhiB Sensuous Knowledge Conference, Os (Norway), 2009 A Cognitive Theory of Metaphor, sound installation created by Thorolf Thuestad and Alwynne Pritchard for ZUPER KLASSIK FREAKY AVANT GARDE, Lydgalleriet, Bergen, 2009 Don't touch me, you don't know where I've been, in-stallation version, B-Open, BEK (Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts), Bergen, 2008 Sheet Music, performance by Parkinson Saunders on paper instruments made by Laura Murray and Alwynne Pritchard, SAN Expo Brighton and Lost and Found conference/concert, Oxford, 2008 Sheet Music, performance by FAT BATTERY on paper instruments made by Laura Murray and Alwynne Pritchard, AVGARDE, Bergen, 2006 Sheet Music, performance by Jørgen Larsson, Bjørnar Habbestad, Maia Urstad, Thorolf Thuestad and Alwynne Pritchard on paper instruments made by Laura Murray and Alwynne Pritchard, Lydgalleriet, Bergen, 2006 Sheet Music, exhibition of photographs of paper instruments made by Laura Murray and Alwynne Pritchard, USF Verftet, Bergen, 2006

Books

up without an insistent casting away, text pieces commissioned to celebrate the opening of the Department of Fine Art, and the Department of Design for the faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design, University of Bergen, 2017

CDs

Les Soliloques décortiqués (as solo vocalist), portrait of Vinko Globokar with BIT20 Ensemble, Kairos, 2020 Rockaby, Kairos, 2019 Alpaca Bowie, Oh No Love, You're Not Alone, Øra Fonogram, 2015 To the Ground, Victoria Johnson (electric violin) and Thorolf Thuestad (electronics), Suspended Beginnings, Farbor Melker Records, 2012 Subterfuge In Vitro, keda records, 2005 The Barnyard Song, Elena Riu's Little Book of Salsa, Boosey and Hawkes, 2004 Geometry of Pain I, Wittener Tage für neue Kammer musik, documentation disc, 2002 Invisible Cities (portrait disc), Metier, 2002 Invisible Cities, Darmstadt disc, 2000

Films

My love is like, online video project, 2022 Neighbourhood (for Gåologi), Chiak Art Center, Wonju (South Korea), 2021 Time Capsule (Zwischen Uns) with ensemble consord, presented online, 2021 I am Dog, animation film with illustrations by Domizia Tosatto, LitFest Bergen, 2021