Explore Ensemble
Biography Explore Ensemble
Explore Ensemble
Since its founding in 2012 at the Royal College of Music by composers Nicholas Moroz and Arne Gieshoff, Explore Ensemble has featured on BBC Radio 3's New Music Show and at festivals and venues throughout the UK and beyond, including Centro Pecci Prato (IT), hcmf// (UK), LCMF (UK), No Bounds (UK), Transit (Belgium), November Music (Netherlands), Wigmore Hall, Kings Place, Cafe OTO, Snape Maltings, Glasgow Cathedral Festival, Cambridge Music Festival, City University of London, the Greenwich Loudspeaker Orchestra Series, the Royal Northern College of Music, the University of Leeds, and the University of Oxford / EXPO Oxford.
May 2023 will see the release of Perfect Offering with the HCR label, including music by Cassandra Miller, Lisa Illean, Rebecca Saunders, and Lawrence Dunn. Other releases include two portrait albums of Oliver Leith and James Weeks’ music on the Another Timbre label, Me Hollywood and Summer, which featured on Bandcamp’s Best of Contemporary Classical 2021 list.
Explore Ensemble focuses on a small number of commissions each season, working closely with composers to create more personal works. Since 2017 commissions have included Patricia Alessandrini, Lisa Illean, Scott McLaughlin, John Croft, Edwin Hillier, Oliver Leith, Joanna Bailie, Angharad Davies, Lawrence Dunn, Mark Fell, Neil Luck, and Beatrice Dillon. 2022 saw the group commission video artist Rebecca Salvadori for a trio portrait films on its projects with Dunn, Davies, and Fell, currently in preparation.
Other featured composers include Natasha Barrett, James Dillon, Lawrence Dunn, Michael Finnissy, Morton Feldman, Gérard Grisey, Catherine Lamb, Mauro Lanza, Andrea Valle, Luigi Nono, Enno Poppe, Kaija Saariaho, Fausto Romitelli, Rebecca Saunders, Salvatore Sciarrino, and many others.
On special occasions Explore Ensemble expands to perform larger works. For example, the ensemble gave the UK premiere of Sciarrino's song cycle Carnaval with the EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble at hcmf// in 2018, and the first London performance of Romitelli's complete ‘Professor Bad Trip’ cycle at the RCM in 2014.
The ensemble also works with guest soloists, for example, soprano Juliet Fraser, with whom the ensemble gave the UK premiere of Rebecca Saunders’ work O Yes & I; mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean, with whom the ensemble gave the UK premiere of Catherine Lamb’s Parallaxis Forma; and clarinetist Benjamin Mellefont, who gave the UK premiere of Kaija Sarriaho’s work Figura.
Explore Ensemble's work has been supported by organisations including Arts Council England, PRS Foundation, Diaphonique, the Hinrichsen Foundation, the RVW Trust, and Acción Cultural Española.
Nicholas Moroz
s a composer and co-founded Explore Ensemble in 2012. His music has been performed by musicians including the GBSR Duo, Sebastiaan Kemner, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, ensemble recherche, Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, and the Britten-Pears Ensemble, at venues and festivals such as Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Abbaye de Royaumont, Moscow Philharmonic, Aldeburgh Festival, St Magnus International Festival, and EXPO Oxford.
He studied composition at the Royal College of Music with Jonathan Cole, Kenneth Hesketh, Simon Holt, and Gilbert Nouno. He also completed a musicology Masters degree at the University of Oxford, where he is currently studying an Arts and Humanities Research Council funded DPhil in Music (Composition) degree. His research involves composition with acoustic instruments and live electronics, and his musicological work investigates the role of technology in Luigi Nono’s live electronic music. His supervisors are Professors Jonathan Cross and Martyn Harry. He has also published articles and given conference presentations on the music of Fausto Romitelli and Morton Feldman.
Besides music he also enjoys the outdoors, sci-fi, tropical plants, and sampling his fellow ensemble members’ food and coffees.
