Curve looks for resident musical theatre composer

Published: 7 April 2017
Reporter: Steve Orme

Past winner: Dougal Irvine

Leicester’s Curve theatre is looking for a musical theatre composer for the next Cameron Mackintosh Resident Composer Scheme placement who will be based in Leicester from October 2017 for six months.

In a joint statement, Curve chief executive Chris Stafford and artistic director Nikolai Foster said, “music plays a major role in our work on and off our stages; it brings new people into the theatre and breaks down boundaries. Supporting a talented composer through this prestigious scheme furthers these aims, in addition to providing a unique opportunity for an extraordinary emerging talent.”

Applications are invited from composers who have had at least one professionally produced musical theatre production which could be paid work for a drama college or other training institute.

Applicants must be UK residents and will ideally be based in Leicester for the duration of the placement.

Opportunities are likely to include creating incidental music for the Curve 2017 children’s production of Roald Dahl’s George’s Marvellous Medicine, assisting composer Leslie Bricusse and orchestrator Sarah Travis on the Christmas 2017 musical Scrooge and helping in the development of a major new musical currently in development at Curve. The successful applicant will receive a fee of £11,000.

Curve associate artist Dougal Irvine won the residency in 2012 and was based at Northampton’s Royal and Derngate. He said, “my resident composer placement came at a pivotal stage in my career. It removed me of financial strain for six months, enabling me to spend working hours on creative work and not day jobs to pay the bills. Spending time in a working producing house also made me feel part of a team and opened up my view of the industry from the inside.

“Whoever receives the placement at Curve will have in Nikolai Foster mentorship from one of the kindest, most intelligent, theatrically knowledgeable and passionate people working in the industry today.”

Anyone interested should apply at the Mercury Musical Developments web site by midday on Tuesday 2 May. Applicants will be asked to upload examples of their work via SoundCloud that reflect the diversity of their work and abilities as a musical theatre composer.

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