Sophie Pope

Sophie Pope was born in 1988 in Sheffield, England. She studied for two years at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester with David Horne and completed her Master's in Composition at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart with Caspar Johannes Walter. In 2013 she spent a semester at the Manhattan School of Music with Nils Vigeland. She is a founding member of the Stuttgarter Kollektiv für aktuelle Musik (S-K-A-M). Her music is performed internationally: in Belo Horizonte, Brazil as part of the “eu gostaria de ouvir” new music festival, in Tel Aviv as part of a German-Israeli exchange, New York, and Krakow during the Axes Composer Triduum in 2011. Also Canada as part of the Thin Edge New Music Collective's Commissioning Fund! In 2011-2012 she was a scholarship holder funded by the Society of the Friends of the MH Stuttgart and in 2012-2013 of the Deutschland Stipendium funded by the Sparda Bank. 2016 RMN Calssical Calls for Scores for II a crow (solo violin). In 2013 she was a prize winner at the Acht Brücken festival in Cologne for string quartet and electronics. In 2012 she was awarded the Honorary Mention from the Prix Ton Bruynèl for to a crow for flute and tape, and the 3rd prize of the Crossover Composition Award for violin duet. 2018 lecturer at the very first International Congress for Wind Band Music in Neu-Ulm. 

Noise Pollution III - Street Vendors (2017)

for Saxophone, Viola und Tape

"Gas, gas, gas!" a seller draws attention to his wares. As a tourist I find it striking, almost entertaining. Who has heard it since childhood barely notices it.

A bell ringing for ice cream? Where I’m from, songs are played in bad quality by “melodic chimes” from a van. The hand bell sounds again in Bad Cannstatt. Ice cream? No, this time it‘s “Potatoes, Onions, Eggs!” - what a disappointment for hopeful children.

An English market: „Apples: six for a pound, six for a pound, six for a pound“ - I presume people in other countries say something similar but for my ears it sounds different, new, like music. In this piece I offer us a short street vendor round-the-world trip. Can we hear this special market atmosphere as a kind of music, or will it remain for many noise pollution?