ROCHE David John

David John Roche has composed pieces for vacuum cleaners and orchestra, epic planetarium shows, customised Dutch street organs, rock bands, video games, films, theatre shows, international orchestras, and anything beyond and in between. His music tends to inhabit one of two worlds. It is either celebratory and bright, consciously in opposition to the world in which it was written, or manic, detailed, and violent in response to the poverty and politics of our time. Roche’s compositions have been broadcast, televised, written about, and performed internationally to millions of people. He is the recipient of over 30 academic and professional awards. These include 5 prizes at the International Antonín  Dvořák Composition Competition (3rd, 2nd, and 1st in 2017, 2018, and 2019 as well as Special Prizes for Best Composition and Best Orchestral Composition in 2018 and 2019), Second Prize at the Tōru Takemitsu Composition Award (‘[Roche] Bravely uses unusually specific melodic material in an excitingly direct way, with passages of intense expressive power’ – Thomas Adès on Six Prayers), First Prize in the Orion Orchestra’s 2017-2018 Composition Competition, First Prize in the Composition Competition Dante Moro, and many more. 

Roche has been commissioned to write music for The Vale of Glamorgan Festival (pieces for Jan Willem Nelleke and Jose Zalba Smith, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and Siwan Rhys), The Royal Observatory Greenwich, Centre of the Cell, The British Library, Cambridge University Communication Department, the Orion Orchestra and Dyson, Hear and Now in conjunction with Psappha, Psappha, Tŷ Cerdd and Hijinx Theatre, NAFTA Ensemble, The National Library of Wales, and Giovanni Albini. He was a 2020 Tanglewood Music Centre Fellow. He has been asked to attend performances and festivals in Japan, Singapore, The Netherlands, Russia, Brazil, America, Lithuania, and many other countries. 
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Roche's music - described as 'exhilarating', 'the highlight of the evening', and 'awesome' - has been performed by an array of different musicians and ensembles; BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Orion Orchestra, Brazilian National Orchestra, UniCamp Orchestra, Dolomiti Symphonia, London Graduate Orchestra, Cambridge Graduate Orchestra, BBC Singers, Grand Band, Britten Sinfonia, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, The Assembly Project, Notes Inegales, Ensemble ISIS, Dr. K Sextet, Magnard Ensemble, Galliard Ensemble, Carducci Quartet, Gildas Quartet, Bute Clarinet Quartet, Darragh Morgan and Mary Dullea, Psappha's Benjamin Powell, Richard Casey, Lisa Nelsen, Richard Watkins, Huw Watkins, and many others.
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Roche studied Music at Cardiff University and graduated with First Class Honours. He was also the recipient of 4 Cardiff University Scholarships including 2 consecutive awards from 'best academic performance' and the Morfydd Owen Prize for 'exceptional academic performance'. Studies continued at Brasenose College, University of Oxford. Roche's study was fully funded with an AHRC Studentship and he was also first runner up for the inaugural Mica and Ahmet Ertegun Scholarship. Roche now resides in Cambridge, UK where he was the first person to read for a PhD in Music Composition at the University of Cambridge (based in Downing College). He has received 7 Seton Cavendish Travel Grant Awards, a William Barclay Squire Fund Award, a Downing College Alumni Student Fund Award, and a Downing College Bursary. He has also been shortlisted for an Arts Council of Wales Advanced Study Scholarship and a MPA Richard Toeman Scholarship. Roche's music making has been generously supported by a Theatr Clwyd Micro-Bursary, an Equal Sound Organisation Award from the Impulse New Music Festival, the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Foundation grant, a grant from the Lithuanian Arts Council, a Help Musicians UK Transmission Fund, a São Paulo Contemporary Composers Festival Scholarship, a scholarship to attend Longy's Divergent Studio at Bard College, a Vale of Glamorgan Festival Composers' Bursary, and many other sources of funding.