Dillon was born in Glasgow, Scotland. Honours include first prize in the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in 1978, the Kranichsteiner music prize at Darmstadt in 1982,[1] and five Royal Philharmonic Society composition awards, most recently for his chamber piece Tanz/Haus: triptych 2017. Dillon taught at Darmstadt from 1982 to 1992, and has been a guest lecturer and composer at various institutions around the world. He taught at the University of Minnesota School of Music in Minneapolis, Minnesota, from 2007 to 2014.
His major works include choral and vocal music, including the cycle L'évolution du vol (1993) and the opera Philomela (2004), the orchestral works helle Nacht (1987), ignis noster (1992), Via Sacra (2000), and La navette (2001), as well as a violin concerto for Thomas Zehetmair (2000) and the piano concertoAndromeda (2006) for his partner, Noriko Kawai, all showing an ease of writing for large forces. From 1982–2000, Dillon worked on the Nine Rivers cycle, a 3-hour work for voices, strings, percussion, live electronics and computer-generated tape. The epic work was first performed in full in Glasgow, November 2010.[2] Andrew Clements of The Guardian awarded it a full five stars, describing the last movement ("Oceanos") as having a "Wagnerian grandeur" and stating, "The cumulative power of [Nine Rivers] is massive, the range of musical experience vast."[3]
His considerable body of chamber music, often written expressly for a performer's individual abilities, includes solos for clarinet, drumkit, cello, flute, piccolo, guitar, violin, viola, and accordion, alongside eight string quartets (1983, 1991, 1998, 2004, 2008, 2010, 2013, 2017), the five-part Book of Elements for piano (1997–2002) and the soadie waste for piano and string quartet (2002/3). In 2013, Tom Service referred to the Book of Elements as "the most significant contribution to the pianist's repertoire since György Ligeti's Études".[4] His fourth string quartet received the 2005 Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award for Chamber-Scale Composition.[5] He won the same award in 1997 (for Traumwerk, Book 1), 2002 (for The Book of Elements 5), and 2017 (for Tanz/Haus: triptych 2017).[6]
Who do you love, female voice, flute (+ piccolo, bass flute), clarinet, violin (+ viola), cello, percussion, 1980–81
Evening Rain, any voice, 1981
Come live with me (text from the Song of Solomon), female voice, flute (+ piccolo, alto flute), oboe (+ oboe d'amore, English horn), piano, percussion, 1981–82
A Roaring Flame (texts by Alexander Carmichael, Clara d'Anduza), female voice, double bass, 1981–82
Time Lag Zero (text from the Song of Solomon), female voice, viola, 1982
L'Évolution du vol, female voice (+ hurdy-gurdy), E-flat clarinet (+ bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet), double bass, piano (+ harmonium), 2 percussion, 1991–93 (sections 2–7 of its eight sections may be performed separately: L'Homme et la vérité, female voice, piano; L'Ascension; L'Être-ange, female voice [+ hurdy-gurdy], E-flat clarinet; Nuée; Descente/désir, female voice, bass clarinet, double bass; Le Vent, l'arbre et le temps)
Classical music
