John White (5 April 1936 – 4 January 2024) was an English

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs whe ...

composer and musical performer. He invented the early British form of minimalism known as systems music, with his early Machines.

Life and career

John White was born in Berlin to an English father and German mother. The family moved to London at the outbreak of war. Originally a sculptor, White decided on a composition career when he heard Messiaen's ''

Turangalîla-Symphonie The ''Turangalîla-Symphonie'' is the only symphony by Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992). It was written for an orchestra of large forces from 1946 to 1948 on a commission by Serge Koussevitzky for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Along with the ...

''. He studied composition at the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music (RCM) is a conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the undergraduate to the doctoral level in all aspects of Western Music including pe ...

from 1955 to 1958 with Bernard Stevens and piano with

Arthur Alexander Arthur Alexander (May 10, 1940 – June 9, 1993) was an American country-soul songwriter and singer. Jason Ankeny, music critic for AllMusic, said Alexander was a "country-soul pioneer" and that, though largely unknown, "his music is the stuf ...

and Eric Harrison. He also took analysis classes privately with

Elisabeth Lutyens Agnes Elisabeth Lutyens, CBE (9 July 190614 April 1983) was an English composer. Early life and education Elisabeth Lutyens was born in London on 9 July 1906. She was one of the five children of Lady Emily Bulwer-Lytton (1874–1964), a me ...

.John Tilbury
'White, John (English composer and performer)'
in ''Grove Music Online'' (2001) Upon graduation, White became the musical director of the Western Theatre Ballet, and then professor of composition at the Royal College of Music from 1961 to 1967. He was a skilled pianist and

tuba The tuba (; ) is the largest and lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece (brass), mouthpiece. It first appeared in th ...

player and has written extensively for both instruments.John White. ''Music for Tuba'', performed by Jay Rozen
/ref> In the 1960s and 1970s he was closely associated with English experimental composers such as

Cornelius Cardew Cornelius Cardew (7 May 193613 December 1981) was an English experimental music composer, and founder (with Howard Skempton and Michael Parsons) of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected experimental mu ...

and

Gavin Bryars Richard Gavin Bryars (; born 16 January 1943) is an English composer and double bassist. He has worked in jazz, free improvisation, minimalism, Musical historicism, historicism, Avant-garde music, avant-garde, and experimental music. Early lif ...

, and a participant in the

Scratch Orchestra The Scratch Orchestra was an experimental musical ensemble founded in the spring of 1969 by Cornelius Cardew, Michael Parsons and Howard Skempton. In the draft constitution published in the ''Musical Times'' of June 1969, Cardew defines a scra ...

. His Royal College of Music pupils have included

Roger Smalley John Roger Smalley (26 July 1943 – 18 August 2015) was an Anglo-Australian composer, pianist and conductor. Professor Smalley was a senior honorary research fellow at the School of Music, University of Western Australia in Perth and honorary ...

Brian Dennis Brian Dennis was an English experimental music composer, and author born in Marple, Cheshire in May 1941 and died in June 1998. Brian studied with Stockhausen, Berio, Earle Brown and Cathy Berberian at The Cologne Course for New Music and was a ...

and William York. White's association with younger composers, including

Christopher Hobbs Christopher Hobbs (born 9 September 1950) is an English experimental composer, best known as a pioneer of British systems music. Life and career Hobbs was born in Hillingdon, near London. He was a junior exhibitioner at Trinity College London, ...

, Dave Smith, Benedict Mason, and John Lely has led to many British ensembles, including the Promenade Theatre Orchestra, Hobbs-White Duo, Garden Furniture Music, the Farewell Symphony Orchestra and other groups. John White was the longest-serving faculty member at

Drama Centre London Drama Centre London (often abbreviated as Drama Centre) was a British drama school in Kings Cross, London, King's Cross, London, where it moved in 2011 after a major reshaping of the University of the Arts London. It was part of Central Saint ...

, holding the position of head of music for four decades until March 2020. White's contribution as a musical educator and artistic mentor had a significant influence on the aesthetic outputs of multiple generations of British actors and directors. White died on 4 January 2024, at the age of 87. A memorial service was held on 12 April 2024 at

St Paul's, Covent Garden St Paul's Church is a Church of England parish church located in Bedford Street, Covent Garden, central London. It was designed by Inigo Jones as part of a commission for the 4th Earl of Bedford in 1631 to create "houses and buildings fit for ...

, and a memorial concert at the Round Chapel, Hackney, on the 14 April.

Works

White's style was informed by what Dave Smith called an "apparently disparate collection of composers from the world of 'alternative' musical history", including Satie, Alkan,

Schumann Robert Schumann (; ; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and music critic of the early Romantic music, Romantic era. He composed in all the main musical genres of the time, writing for solo piano, voice and piano, chamber ...

, Reger, Szymanowski,

Busoni Ferruccio Busoni (1 April 1866 – 27 July 1924) was an Italian composer, pianist, conductor, editor, writer, and teacher. His international career and reputation led him to work closely with many of the leading musicians, artists and literary ...

and Medtner. These composers influenced his piano sonatas, which White wrote from 1956 onward, but other influences on his wider work included

Messiaen Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (, ; ; 10 December 1908 – 27 April 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithology, ornithologist. One of the major composers of the 20th-century classical music, 20th century, he was also an ou ...

Rachmaninoff Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of ...

, and the electronic pop ensembles

Kraftwerk Kraftwerk (, ) is a Germany, German Electronic music, electronic band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk was among the first successful a ...

and

the Residents The Residents are an American art collective and art rock band best known for their avant-garde music and multimedia works. Since their first official release, ''Meet the Residents'' (1974), they have released over 60 albums, numerous music vid ...

. Although it is so eclectic as to cover a wide range of styles, White's work has been called ironic, "experimental", and even "avant postmodern". Although White had worked in what could be called an 'experimental' style since 1962, he composed music using indeterminate means after 1966. His later work included music with numerical and other systems processes. ''

Machine Music ''Machine Music'' is a 1978 album by John White and Gavin Bryars. The album was the eighth release on Brian Eno's Obscure Records. This release had the catalogue number ''Obscure OBS 8''. In common with most of the releases on Obscure it was reco ...

'', a 1978 album with Gavin Bryars, is illustrative of White's concept of Machines: "a consistent process governing a series of musical actions within a particular sound-world". In the 1980s - specifically following the ballet ''They are Not Like Us'' (1980, for Virginia Taylor's Kickstart company), which featured an electronically enhanced piano - White became interested in electronic music, often using "low-tech" toy instruments, such as

Casio is a Japanese multinational electronics manufacturing corporation headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Its products include calculators, mobile phones, digital cameras, electronic musical instruments, and analogue and digital watches. It ...

miniature keyboards. An example is ''Fashion Music'' (1993), performed by the Gemini Ensemble with clarinettist Ian Mitchell accompanied by the pre-set sounds of mass-market home electronic keyboards and "little machines".John White. ''Fashion Music''
London Hall D03 (1993) As of 2019, White had written 180

piano sonata A piano sonata is a sonata written for a solo piano. Piano sonatas are usually written in three or four movements, although some piano sonatas have been written with a single movement (Liszt, Scriabin, Medtner, Berg), others with two movemen ...

s,John White: Piano Sonatas, NMCD038 (1997), performed by Roger Smalley
/ref> 25

symphonies A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning c ...

, 30

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...

s, and much

incidental music Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, or some other presentation form that is not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as th ...

for the stage, all in a highly eclectic style (or, more accurately, range of styles). His stage music includes commissions by the

Royal Shakespeare Company The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and opens around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, Stratf ...

and the

Royal National Theatre The National Theatre (NT), officially the Royal National Theatre and sometimes referred to in international contexts as the National Theatre of Great Britain, is a performing arts venue and associated theatre company located in London, England, ...

. White wrote several scores for internal projects and public productions, including his final score for Drama Centre, ''Mother Courage and her Children'' (2015). Other projects include a set of

song cycle A song cycle () is a group, or cycle (music), cycle, of individually complete Art song, songs designed to be performed in sequence, as a unit.Susan Youens, ''Grove online'' The songs are either for solo voice or an ensemble, or rarely a combinat ...

s, one of which consists of settings of friends' addresses.

Recordings

* ''Electric Music''. ANTS AG22 (2020), includes 11th and 16th Symphonies. * ''Fashion Music'', London Hall DO3 (1993), Gemini Ensemble. * ''

'' (John White/Gavin Bryers), Obscure OBS8 (1978). * ''Music for Tubas: Killer Tuba Songs, Vol. 3'', CD Baby (2017), Jay Rozen. * Piano Sonatas Nos.1, 4, 5 and 9. Lyrita REAM 2108 (2008 re-issue of Lyrita RCS 18, 1965), Colin Kingsley. * Piano Sonatas Nos. 15, 29, 31, 54, 55, 56, 57, 75, 76, 78, 86, 87, 95, 104, 108, 109, 121 & 124. NMC DO38 (1996), Roger Smalley. * Piano Sonatas Vol. I (''Adventures At The Keyboard: The Early Sonatas''). Convivium CR006 (2007), Jonathan Powell.Jonathan Powell, Convivium Records
/ref> * Piano Sonatas Vol. 2 (''Later Sonatas''). Convivium CR051 (2019), Jonathan Powell.

References

External links

* * , played by Jonathan Powell at the 'Indian Summer in Levoca' festival, 2008.
Convivium Records. John White: Adventures at the Keyboard

Experimental Music: John White performs his sonatas

The Essay: Sarah Walker on John White, BBC audio, 17 March 2014

Sources

*Anderson, Virginia. 1991. "White, John". In ''Contemporary Composers''. London: St. James Press. *Anderson, Virginia. 1983. "British Experimental Music: Cornelius Cardew and his Contemporaries". M.A. thesis, Redlands, California: University of Redlands (Facsimile edition published 2000, Leicester: Experimental Music Catalogue; new edition forthcoming, as ''Experimental Music in Britain''.) *Smith, Dave, "Albus Liber: Exploits and Opinions of John White, Composer Volume I" (''Journal of the London Institute of Pataphysics''), Atlas Press, 2014. {{DEFAULTSORT:White, John 1936 births 2024 deaths Alumni of the Royal College of Music Academics of the Royal College of Music English male classical pianists English classical composers English opera composers English male opera composers English experimental musicians 21st-century English classical pianists 21st-century English male musicians

Life and career

Works

Recordings

See also

References

External links

Sources