Camerata Pacifica is pleased to announce Ian Wilson as the company’s first Principal Composer. This three-year position, now in its second year, brings composers into the Camerata Pacifica communities, and actively promotes their work through multiple commissions and performances. The ensemble premiered Wilson’s first of three works for Camerata, The “Messenger” Concerto for Violin and Chamber Ensemble, in May 2007, and the second, “Heft”, for flute and piano, in January 2008. The “Messenger” Concerto forms the centerpiece of Camerata Pacifica’s first international tour, in April and May 2008.

Ian Wilson
Principal Composer

Ian Wilson was born in Belfast in 1964 and obtained the first D.Phil in composition to be awarded by the University of Ulster which, in 1993, commissioned his orchestral work Rise in celebration of the tenth anniversary of its foundation. His music has been performed and broadcast on six continents by artists such as the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, the Ulster, Belgrade Philharmonic and Norwegian Radio Orchestras, the London Mozart Players and the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the Artis, Vogler and Vanbrugh Quartets, Lontano and Avanti! ensembles, Catherine Leonard and Hugh Tinney. Works have been performed at many festivals including the BBC Proms, Venice Biennial, ISCM World Music Days, the Cheltenham, Spitalfields and Bath Festivals and the Ultima Festival in Oslo, where Running, Thinking, Finding for orchestra received the composition prize in 1991.

He has written over seventy pieces including two chamber operas, concertos for organ, cello, alto saxophone, violin (three), marimba and piano, orchestral pieces, seven string quartets, four piano trios and many other chamber and vocal works.

In 1992 Ian Wilson was awarded the Macaulay Fellowship administered by the Arts Council of Ireland, and in 1998 he was elected to Aosdana, Ireland's State-sponsored body of creative artists. From 2000 to 2003 Ian Wilson was AHRB Research Fellow in Creative and Performing Arts at the University of Ulster. His music is published by Ricordi London and Universal Edition.