Joanna Bailie
Joanna Bailie is an English composer of contemporary classical music.
She studied with Roger Redgate at the University of Newcastle, Richard Barrett in Amsterdam, and in 2000 completed a Masters degree in composition at Columbia University. Following her studies in the USA she moved to Brussels where she continues to reside.
In addition to her teachers, she has also been influenced by J.S. Bach, Morton Feldman and Tom Johnson, as well as the visual artist Sol Le Witt and the Oulipo literary group.
Most of her works are for chamber ensembles, which have been performed by groups such as Ensemble Musikfabrik, The Nieuw Ensemble, Apartment House, The London Sinfonietta and Orkest de Volharding.
The principle of permutation is central to her compositional approach. This rationalisation of artistic choice, presenting all the combinatorial possibilities without choosing one over another, provides "the basic means for organization and variation" in her work. Representitive pieces include Spice, for ten INSTRUMENTS, Two Things, for clarinet, electric guitar, percussion, piano and tape, Double, for clarinet, violin, cello, guitar and piano, and On and Off, for 6 performers with radios and CD players.
In recent years she has been increasingly involved in collaborative work, working especially with the scenographer Christoph Ragg on installations and multimedia performances. She also provided the electronic soundtrack for choreographer Brice Leroux's Quantum Quintet.
She is co-director of Plus Minus, a new music ensemble based in London/Brussels, and has been appointed Artistic Director of the 2010 Spor Festival in Aarhus.