Xan Gill (b.1996) is an award-winning composer from the North East of England, now working in London.

 

His work prioritises organicism, making frequent use of unsynchronised lines and free time. Motion and stasis - background and foreground - are key concerns, assembled like layers of a landscape flashing by a train window. The music is often raw, muscular, gripped by a compelling darkness. It flickers, loops, glitches, injected with the itchy hi-hats and swollen depth of dub & electronica. In other areas, the sound-world is hushed and still; delicate, hovering music.

 

Most recently Xan reached the finals of the ROSL Composition Award with the London Sinfonietta, as well as winning the Alan Bush Prize for his clarinet trio sun, drums & soil for Mark Simpson, Huw Watkins & Zoë Martlew. He is currently working on a percussion quartet commission from The Arts Society, a piece for Psappha New Music Ensemble and a large-scale dance/multimedia work with Northern Dance. He has written for Riot Ensemble, Trio Mallarmé (Paul Silverthorne, Karen Jones, Hugh Webb), London Metropolitan Brass and the London Sinfonietta amongst others. 

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Xan studied at the Royal Academy of Music with Philip Cashian, generously supported by the Charles W Black Fellowship. During this time he received tuition from Hans Abrahamsen, Tansy Davies, Georg Friedrich Haas, Helen Grime MBE, Edmund Finnis and John Woolrich. Xan was awarded with an additional Diploma of the Royal Academy of Music (DipRAM) for an outstanding final portfolio, as well as a Regency Award, the Arthur Hinton Memorial Prize, the Pullen Memorial Prize, the Evan Senior Scholarship and the G V Turner-Cooke Composition Award.

 

Xan’s electronic/dance music has received over 100,000 streams and airplay on BBC Radio.