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On this site you can listen to extracts of music by composer Christopher Best, download score samples, find information on purchasing scores and recordings, read articles and fiction that he has written and learn about his current projects. Chris is always keen to discuss creative projects, commissions or performances of his work. It is the life-blood of any composer to be writing and to be heard. If you are a performer, conductor, choreographer, visual artist, director or writer etc looking for fresh musical dimensions, then please make contact.

Christopher Best at Torre Abbey: the location that inspired the composition 'How Great, How Fall'n'
photo courtesy Kate Mount

About the artist

As a composer...

Christopher Best is a freelance composer who lives and works in the South West of England. He has written nearly fifty major works and received much critical acclaim. Major commissions include Emilyn Claid and Co, Scottish Dance Theatre, Bimba Dance Theatre, Jamaican National Dance and the SPNM. Works have been written for ensembles including ‘Aquarius’, ‘Jane’s Minstrels’, ‘Kokoro’, the choir of Selwyn College Cambridge and ‘Onyx Brass’, plus a host of distinguished soloists. Many of Chris's pieces have also been shortlisted and selected by the SPNM reading panel.

Recent output includes; ‘Echoes of a Lost Music’ for the guitarist Matthew Marshall (recently toured throughout New Zealand), ‘Still Beating’ for the harpist Ruth Wall (premiered at Wapping Power Station, London), ‘How Great, How Fall’n’ for the John Armitage Memorial concert season, ‘Dolya Nash Krai’ for voices, electric guitar and gamelan (shortlisted by the SPNM reading panel) and a 60 minute CD ‘Waking Dance’.

"....This is lovely music for dance, and it develops in a delightful way...."
(Howard Skempton - composer)

"....Courageous in its simplicity and deserves to be heard."
(SPNM Reading panel)

Much of Chris's recent work has been for contemporary dance, with major commissions from Claid & Co, Scottish Dance Theatre, Bimba Dance Theatre and Jamaican National Dance. REQUEST CV

Poster for the dance piece 'Twilight Tempest'
courtesy Indra Thiagarajah

Dartington College
of Arts (Lower Close)
photo courtesy Dartington Archive

As an educator...

Chris is Senior Lecturer in Composition at University College Falmouth in Cornwall. Between 1998 and 2010 he worked at Dartington College of Arts, becoming a ‘Reader in Music Composition’ in 2001. Before that, he designed and ran Higher National Diploma and BA Degree courses in composition at Coventry University, the first of their kind anywhere in the country. He has twice been artistic director (music) of the Composers/Choreographers Exchange at the South Bank in London and has gone on to conduct similar workshops in Spain, Holland and Sweden. Between 2005 and 2007 he co-ran the Music and Dance Exchange (m&de) at Dartington College of Arts with internationally acclaimed choreographer Emilyn Claid.

As a writer...

For the past six years Chris has been busy expanding his creative work into the realms of fiction writing. In addition to short stories and a pilot TV script, he has also completed two novels: 'The Moor Inn Fire' and 'Mobius'. He has also written articles on music and dance collaboration, and created or adapted texts for his own compositions. More information and downloads can be found on the writing page.

Website designed and built by Christopher Best, hosted by Lewis Fitzjohn.