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B.P. Herrington was born in East Texas, in 1976. His works have been performed by artists such as soprano Tony Arnold, conductor James Baker, Ensemble Linea, El Perro Andaluz, the London Sinfonietta, the Royal Academy Symphony Orchestra, the New York Youth Symphony, the BBC Singers, in venues such as Rothko Chapel, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Carnegie Hall, and London’s Purcell Room. He is founding director of Intersection New Music Collective based at Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, Texas, where he teaches composition and analysis.
Composition awards include the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize, Morton Gould Award (ASCAP), Leo Kaplan Prize (ASCAP), First Music Award (New York Youth Symphony) and two composition awards from the Royal Academy of Music. His music has been selected for performance at June in Buffalo (2013), Wellesley Composers Conference (2013), the Cleveland Composers Recording Institute (2013), Pharos Arts Festival in Cyprus (2012), the Soundscape Festival in Italy (2011), UMKC Cello Days (2010), among others. Herrington earned a Ph.D. in music composition at the Royal Academy of Music, London, where he studied with Simon Bainbridge (2001-2004). He also studied with Marc Satterwhite and Steve Rouse at the University of Louisville (1998-2000), and with Frank Felice at Lamar University (1994-1998).
B.P. Herrington: A Region Lovelier Far
B.P. writes of A Country Lovelier Far: My new orchestral work is a poem about my native area in East Texas. The textural and acoustic sound-world is born of the tangled woods and shaded creeks of the Big Thicket. My musical lines teem with voices from my family and my past: the strange ecstatic blend of gospel and honky-tonk I heard as a child in our rural Pentecostal church (where my father led the singing and I played trumpet), the high fervent singing of my backwoods Baptist grandmother and other kinfolk, as well as the songs and folklore of the Big Thicket, still resonant with old Scots-Irish roots. My primary aesthetic models are literary, in particular William Faulkner, who so admirably balanced modernism and unique sense of place. As far as form goes, I have no preconceived notions when I begin a piece. As Flannery O’Connor said, “You don’t dream up a form and put the truth in it. The truth creates its own form.” All I can say for now is that I plan to have a grand old time bringing this piece to life, and I hope to fill it with all the beauty and humor it can hold. And I thank my wife in advance for her patience.