Biography

Andrew Staniland (born 1977) is a Canadian composer and guitarist. He is currently a professor of Composition and Electronic Music at the Memorial University of Newfoundland. Andrew Staniland was born in Red Deer, Alberta, in 1977. His first instrument was the guitar, and he began playing in heavy-metal bands as a young teen. Staniland began formal studies in jazz and arranging at Grant MacEwan Community College in Edmonton (now MacEwan University), where he also studied composition with Gordon Nicholson. He then studied classical guitar at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta, before obtaining both a Master's and Doctorate degree in Composition from the University of Toronto.

A composer whose work has been performed and broadcast in over 35 countries, Staniland has been commissioned by musicians and ensembles such as cellist Frances-Marie Uitti, Duo Concertante (violinist Nancy Dahn and pianist Timothy Steeves), the Gryphon Trio, and Les Percussions de Strasbourg. He has also been an Affiliate Composer with both the National Arts Centre Orchestra (2002–2004) and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (2006–2009), and in 2005 was a composer-in-residence at the Centre de Création Musicale Iannis Xenakis in Paris.

In 2010 Staniland joined the faculty of the School of Music at Memorial University of Newfoundland, where he teaches composition and electronic music. There Staniland founded the Memorial ElectroAcoustic Research Lab (MEARL), where he is part of a cross-disciplinary research team that has created the Mune, an electronic music performance instrument that "combines the functionality of a MIDI controller ... with the expressiveness and simplicity of an acoustic instrument."

Staniland is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre, a member of the Canadian League of Composers, and an inaugural member of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada.