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"Music Machine 34 - a delicate trio whose fragility is emphasised by the slow expansion of its periods of silence: Morton Feldman enters the digital age."

Simon Belshaw studied composition with Gavin Bryars, Andy Hugill and Philip Grange and gained a PhD in composition from the University of Hertfordshire in 2005.

Generative Systems and Disruptive Processes in Musical Composition


He has had pieces performed by the Schidlof Quartet, PM Ensemble, Exeter Contemporary Sounds and A Quiet Night In.
His work has been played on Radio 3 and Radio 6 Music as well as used for film and video. It has also been heard at various festivals including Lost weekend, Sonoroties, Hilltown New Music Festival, Audiograft Festival York Spring Festival and as part of novusvoxus 60x60.

His current work concentrates on the Music Machine Project and there are 45 of them to date.

"Simon Belshaw's Music Machine compositions (conceptually fascinating AND sonically beautiful)."

lost weekend


"Wonderful sense of patience and harmonies rubbing together."

"There’s a lovely complex simplicity to the idea and layout is really easy to understand.
You could easily go down a route of discussing aleatoric music at an academic level,
or have a group of 5 year olds creating their own performance.” Dan Mayfield, School of Noise.

“I wish we had had time to play it again - as always with these pieces,
despite their apparent simplicity there is a lot to learn as an individual and as a group.”
Emma Welton, Aubergine Family Orchestra.

"Which particular works do you think you collectively perform best?
Non-traditional, multimedia works that involve a more performative,
even theatrical approach to musicking, as Christopher Small would have it.
Think of the New Discipline by Jennifer Walshe, Matthew Shlomowitz, James Saunders and others.
Or the experiments in graphic notation of composers like John Cage, Cornelius Cardew,
and more recent examples by Simon Belshaw." Francesco Fusaro, 19’40”.

simon[at]simonbelshaw.co.uk


Ministry of Music Machine Building

© 2022 Simon Belshaw