Niki Zohdi

Profile

I am a Blackburn-born composer, conductor and tenor and am currently undertaking a practice-led PhD within the School of Music in the temporality, ageing and newness of musical material in the New Complexity which is co-supervised by Dr Mic Spencer and Professor Martin Iddon. My doctoral work explores the development and progression of method and compositional technique in the bracket of New Complexity in the second half of the 20th Century up to the present day. It focusses on different approaches to musical and non-musical quotation as well as the ageing and newness of this style of music, and my own compositional output.

In 2019, my string quartet Farey was workshopped by the Ligeti Quartet and I have had performances of my music around the UK.

I am also a conductor having conducted various choral and instrumental ensembles in works by composers ranging from Palestrina and Byrd to Scelsi and Gubaidolina. As a tenor, I was a frequent deputy in numerous London-based choirs as well as being a soloist around the city, such as in Haydn’s Nelson Mass at St John’s, Smith Square in February, 2020.

Research interests

• Composition
• New Complexity
• Compositional process/method
• New music
• Quotation
• Musical analysis
• Temporality
• Philosophy of time
• 20th/21st Century aesthetics
• Zweite Moderne

Qualifications

• MMus Composition (Goldsmiths)
• BMus Music (Goldsmiths)