Keith Burstein

My family origins are, on my father's side, Russian, and on my mother's, English.I was born in the UK. Both parents were professional orchestral and chamber violinists, who played for the Royal Opera House in London and the Halle Orchestra in Manchester. After the Royal College of Music I founded and conducted for over ten years a chamber orchestra in contemporary work, The Grosvenor Group, with which I made recordings for BBC Radio 3.Some members of the ensemble went on to form the Chamber Orchestra of Europe with Claudio Abbado, Then, at the age of about 30, I underwent quite suddenly became a full time composer.
I have worked with internationally renowned artists, including the composer Arvo Part who gave me much assistance with my career, and also the great pianist and conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy. The late Corin Redgrave produced and Ralph Steadman designed my operatic works.
The completed opera Manifest Destiny 2011 received its premiere in September 2011 by Opera Up Close. In 2012 I conducted and recorded in Lithuania the first complete performance of my Symphony ‘Elixir' and a new song cycle, Songs of Love and Solitude.This project has been made possible by Vladimir Ashkenazy, who has been a great friend and mentor to my work. The album was released by Naxos in December 2013.
How to reach out with music of the heart once more and which yet crosses boundaries of innovation and represents the contemporary world?This impluse has driven my work and, as a result, the combination of invention with tradition in my music has sometimes generated controversy. My works have used the new tonalities they explore to connect with humanitarian themes, from Manifest Destiny, an opera that imagines reconciliation across the geo political wars of today, to Requiem, in memory of those lost in a river Thames boat disaster, to a Meditation on the Holocaust, Years's Midnight.