Kerry Andrew

Kerry Andrew (born 5 April 1978) is an English composer, performer and author.
Kerry has a PhD in Composition from the University of York and is the winner of four British Composer Awards. Andrew's debut novel, Swansong, was published by Vintage in January 2018 and a second, Skin, in 2021. Andrew was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2018 and again in 2022.
Career
From age 3 to age 6, Andrew lived in Canada with her family. The family subsequently returned to the UK and settled in the Buckinghamshire area. Andrew earned a BA in Music, MA and PhD in Composition, all from the University of York.
Andrew was Composer in Residence at Handel House Museum during 2010-12, and was Visiting Professor of Music at Leeds College of Music in 2015-16 and 2017-18. She won her first British Composer Award in the Making Music Category in 2010 for her choral work 'Fall', and won two awards in 2014, in the Stage Works category for her wild swimming chamber opera 'Dart's Love' and in the Community or Educational category for her community chamber opera 'Woodwose,' written for Wigmore Hall, and for which she also wrote the libretto. She won her fourth award, in the Music for Amateur Musicians category, for 'who we are', a piece for the massed National Youth Choirs of Great Britain, premiered at the Royal Albert Hall in 2016.
Andrew's 'No Place Like,' was written for the BBC Ten Pieces scheme, and received BBC Proms performances in both 2017 and 2018. She has written large scale pieces for young and non-professional ensembles, including 400 Lewisham-based primary school children at the Royal Festival Hall; for Animate Orchestra, the Junior Trinity Symphony Orchestra and 500 singers of the South London Riverside Partnership at the Royal Albert Hall; and for the massed choirs of the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain at the Royal Albert Hall in her piece 'who we are.' She created a concept drawing and vocal EP A Lock Is A Gate for Art on the Underground in 2011, and a work simultaneously performed by 25 community ensembles around the UK for the Landmark Trust. In 2015, she wrote a piece for the London Sinfonietta to fight for the National Health Service (featuring the recorded voices of 60 members of the public, including actor/campaigner Michael Sheen).
Andrew was a British Council/PRS for Music Foundation Musicians in Residence in China in Spring 2016, spending five weeks in the Henan Province in 2016. She made collaborative new rock/traditional-inspired songs based on foxes in folklore.
Andrew's choral works have been published by Faber Music and by Oxford University Press, including in Carols for Choirs. Her vocal trio piece The Song of Doves concluded the national memorial service for the victims of the 7 July bombings, receiving national broadcast live on the BBC and other news outlets. Her composition Dusk Songs was commissioned and recorded by The Ebor Singers, and released by Boreas Music in 2007. Elsewhere, her work has been recorded on the Naxos and Nonclassical labels, and choral premieres have been given by the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain, The Hilliard Ensemble, ORA Singers, the Joyful Company of Singers and Alamire.
Andrew performs with the vocal trio Juice Vocal Ensemble, who have released two albums on the Nonclassical label, which include her music, as well as a collaborative album with David Thomas Broughton. They have collaborated with the likes of Anna Meredith, Gavin Bryars, Shlomo, Errollyn Wallen and Mica Levi.
She performs alt-folk under the name You Are Wolf. Her debut album, Hawk to the Hunting Gone (2014, Stone Tape), explored British birds and folklore. Her second album, Keld (Firecrest, 2018) was awarded fRoots magazine's Editor's Choice! Album of the Year 2018 and chosen by the Guardian as a Top Ten Folk Album 2018. She has collaborated with Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris, setting texts from their book The Lost Words.
She is a multi-instrumentalist with the band DOLLYman.
From 2007-17, she sang with Laura Cole's jazz ensemble, Metamorphic.
Andrew has written libretto for her own music-theatre works and articles for The Guardian. She made her short story debut on BBC Radio 4's Stories from Songwriters Series in 2014, and Jonathan Cape published her debut novel, Swansong], in January 2018. She was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award in 2018 for her story 'To Belong To', which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4, read by Tobias Menzies.
Andrew occasionally appears as a presenter on BBC Radio 3's Hear and Now and has been a frequent guest on BBC Radio 3 and 4, including The Essay in 2018, and a guest mix for Late Junction in 2017. She was the Chair of the Judges on BBC Young Musician 2018.
Selected compositions
Choral Music
maranatha (2004) SATB choir
dusksongs (2005) compline mass for SATB choir and percussion
hevene quene (2006) SATB choir
Drop, Drop Slow Tears (2007) SATB choir and piano
York Mass (2008) SATB choir
the ivy and the holly (2008) SATB choir
The Cherry Tree Carol (2009) SATB choir
hexennacht (2009) SSAA choir
Fall (2010) SATB choir
Magnificat (2010) SATB choir
adam and the mother (2011) SATB choir
The Earth Hath Voice (2011) SATB choir
Out of the Orient Crystal Skies (2011) SATB choir
Rhymes and Charms for Fly-Away Things (2011) SATB choir and piano
A Still Roar (2012) SATB choir and organ
where the marsh plants grow (2012) SSAATTBB single voices
All Things Are Quite Silent, arr. (2012) SATB choir
The London Breed (2014) Large-scale young people's choir, symphony orchestra, experimental orchestra
The Dream of the Rood (fragments) (2015) SATB Choir
CoMAblues (2016) from 6 voices to any number of voices
who we are (2016) Large-scale choirs/ (or) SATB choir
Thy Flight Be Fleet! trainsongs (2016) SATB choir, children's chorus and symphony orchestra
Psalm 150 (2016) SATB choir
Two Bird Proverbs (2016) SSA single voices, SATB choir
Listen To Us (2017) children's chorus, rhythm trio
No Place Like (2017) children's chorus, SATB choir / children's chorus with optional piano and classroom percussion
By Any Other Name (2017) SSAATTBB
wave (2018) SSSAA (junior girls choir, senior girls choir)
Charm (2018) SSAA (youth voices)
Under The Same Sky (2018) SSAA (youth voices)
Other vocal music
fruit songs (2001) soprano and guitar (also arrangements for soprano and chamber ensemble, and soprano and piano)
luna-cy (2001) SSA single voices
lullaby for the witching hour (2004) SSA single voices
ojo (2004) SSA single voices
sundial songs (2005) counter-tenor and prepared piano
the song of doves (2006) SSA single voices
hammock (2008) soprano and 'cello
Goodnight Irene, arr. (2012) SSA single voices
Night-time Songs, arr. (2013) SSA single voices
apples, plums, cherries (The Cherry Tree Carol) (2015) SSA single voices
hollyberry song (2016) SSA single voices, wine glasses
Opera and music-theatre
sedna stories (2005) music-theatre work for SSA single voices and chamber ensemble with electronics by Paul J Abbott and visuals by Harriet Poole
Woodwose (2013) community chamber opera for tenor solo, children's choruses, adult community choir, older voices and chamber ensemble
Dart's Love: a wild swimming chamber opera (2013) for baritone, soprano, three female voices and chamber ensemble
Fox-Pop: A Snappy Opera (2017) for children's voices, bass clarinet, electric piano and trash drum kit
Butterfly Brain (2018) for narrator, soprano/instrumentalist, 'cellist/vocalist and percussionist/vocalist, words by Laura Dockrill
Chamber ensemble
I think you'll find that I'M the man (2007), chamber ensemble
Pollack (2010), chamber ensemble
bad-luck birds (2012) recorder quintet
NHS (2015) soprano and chamber ensemble, with recorded community voices
THE, WHAT IS IT? THE GOLDEN EAGLE? (2017) chamber ensemble
tInItUs sOnGs (2018) string quartet and recorded spoken word
Other educational and community work
beginning with blobs (2008) theatre work for actor-singers and recorded chamber ensemble
A Lock is a Gate (Art on the Underground) (2011) concept drawing and vocal album: children's spoken word, song and field recordings
Lines, Loops, Bones and Stones (2015) flexible ensembles
songchants (2016), children's voices and string quartet
The Sky Begins to Change (2017), for solo voice, early/folk chamber ensemble, recorded voices
Discography
Juice Vocal Ensemble
Songspin (2010), Nonclassical
Laid Bare: Love Songs (2014), Nonclassical
Sliding the Same Way with David Thomas Broughton (2014), Song by Toad
Snow Queens (2018), Resonus Classics
You Are Wolf
hunting little songs, EP (2010), Mulberry House
Hawk to the Hunting Gone, (2014), Stone Tape
Keld, (2018), Firecrest
Choral
Dusksongs, The Ebor Singers (2007), Boreas Music
York Mass, The Ebor Singers, (2009), Boreas Music
DOLLYman
DOLLYman (2010), self-release
Have Yourself a DOLLY DOLLY Christmas (2013), self-release
Ponderous Skiffle Rubbish (2015), self-release
Metamorphic
The Rock Between (2011), F-ire
Coalescence (2013), F-ire
Selected publications
References
External links
Official Kerry Andrew website
Juice experimental vocal trio website
You Are Wolf website
The Times: Laura Mvula, Kerry Andrew and Caroline Shaw
The Guardian: Kerry Andrew You Are Wolf interview
The Guardian: Kerry Andrew Swansong Interview Debut Novel
"Kerry Andrew - An Interview", Opera Today, 12 January 2010
"Kerry Andrew Interview (Part One)", PRS for Music Members' Magazine, 6 December 2010
"Kerry Andrew Interview (Part Two)", PRS for Music Members' Magazine, 6 December 2010
Alumni of the University of York
English composers
1978 births
Living people
People from High Wycombe
British women composers
Musicians from Buckinghamshire
21st-century English women singers
21st-century English singers