Steve Martland
'Creativity is everything that is against what's going on in the world right now.' - Steve Martland
English composer and anti-establishment figure Steve Martland was born in Liverpool on 10 October 1959, studying composition at Liverpool University and then in the Netherlands with Louis Andriessen (about whom he later directed a film, A Temporary Arrangement with the Sea). Andriessen was later able to pay tribute in return, after Martland's unexpected death, in his sleep, from a heart attack, on 6 May 2013, aged fifty-three.
He deliberately kept himself away from the mainstream musical institutions so that he could operate independently and wouldn't have to behave well or 'suck up to anyone', and he asked deep questions about the role of the composer in society. The Steve Martland Band tours his music internationally.
His powerful, harsh but approachable, amplified music has been extensively choreographed, and Martland considered dance as a career before becoming a composer.
Martland was passionate about music education, and ran his own composition course for children, Strike Out.
A selection of articles about Steve Martland
Record box - That is it. Steve Martland is passing through, with Basil Ramsey