William Sweeney

William John Sweeney (born 5 January 1950) is a Scottish composer.

Biography Born in Glasgow, he attended Knightswood Secondary School. He studied the clarinet and composition at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama from 1967 to 1970, and at the Royal Academy of Music from 1970 to 1973, where his teachers included Alan Hacker and Harrison Birtwistle. He went on to teach woodwind instruments, and then composition at the University of Glasgow. An early influence was the European avant-garde, particularly Karlheinz Stockhausen, though he returned to tonal composition in the mid-1970s.

His work is strongly influenced by traditional Scottish folk music; in particular, he has utilised the heterophonic style of Gaelic psalm-singing, and the piobaireachd form; he varies melodies through ornamentation, as in traditional pibroch, and in their contour; he modifies instruments' tone-colours through alternative fingerings. He has a strong regard for the music of Leoš Janáček. He has also addressed the reconciliation of classical and traditional music with jazz, using improvisational techniques and sometimes combining the two idioms. He has been influenced by ancient Greek poetry, and Indian and Arab traditions in his use of ostinato and other techniques of varied repetition.

His Sonata for cello and piano (2010) won the 2011 British Composer Award in the "Instrumental Solo or Duo" category.

Selected works Opera An Turus, opera in 3 acts, 1997; libretto by Aonghas MacNeacail

Orchestral Maqam, 1984 Glasgow, 1985 Sunset Song, 1986 Cumha, 1987 Seann Orain, 1989 Air, Strathspey and Reel, 1990 Concerto Grosso, for 9 clarinets, strings and timpani, 1990 St. Blane's Hill, 1991 A Set for the Kingdom, for string orchestra, 1991 October Landscapes, 1993 Birth/Procession, 1993 The Lost Mountain (A-bheinn Air Chall), for wind band, 1996 Sweeney Astray, 1996

Concertante Ceol-Beag, for cello and orchestra, 1981 An rathad ùr, for saxophone and orchestra, 1989

Chamber music String Quartet, 1981 Trio for clarinet, viola and piano, 1982 Sonata for viola, marimba and claves, 1985 Sweeney Astray, for 2 clarinets, 1987, or for clarinet and viola, 2003 String Quartet No. 3, 2004–2007 Sonata for cello and piano, 2010 The Ballad of the Cat and the Ram, for violin and piano

Choral Salm an Fhearainn, 1987 An Seachnadh, 1988 I Will Wait, 1990 Two Lyrics, 1992 Airc an dualchais, 1998

Multimedia Tantallon! These Lands, This Wall, 2012

Songs 3 Poems from Sangschaw, 1977 The Heights of Macchu Picchu, 1988 El Pueblo, 1989 A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle, 1992 An Coilltean Ratharsair (The Woods of Raasay), 1993 Seeking Wise Salmon, 1994 All That Came in That One Coracle, 1999