Adrian Frederick Joseph Jack (born 16 March 1943, in England) is a British

Composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

Biography

Adrian Jack was born on 16 March 1943, in

Datchet Datchet is a village and civil parish in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in Berkshire, England, on the north bank of the River Thames. Historic counties of England, Historically part of Buckinghamshire, and the Stoke Hundred, the vi ...

, near

Slough Slough () is a town in Berkshire, England, in the Thames Valley, west of central London and north-east of Reading, at the intersection of the M4, M40 and M25 motorways. It is part of the historic county of Buckinghamshire. In 2021, the ...

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (, abbreviated ''Bucks'') is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-east, Hertfordshir ...

, England. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood (1954–60), and 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 ...

, London (1961–64), where he studied composition with Peter Racine Fricker, fugue and orchestration with

Gordon Jacob Gordon Percival Septimus Jacob CBE (5 July 18958 June 1984) was an English composer and teacher. He was a professor at the Royal College of Music in London from 1924 until his retirement in 1966, and published four books and many articles about ...

, piano with Antony Hopkins and organ with John Birch. From 1967 to 1969 he studied composition and electronic music with Włodzimierz Kotoński at the State Higher School of Music in

Warsaw, Poland Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at 1.86 million residents within a grea ...

. Jack started composing at the age of 13. He later studied at the

. The main conscious influence at that time was

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 ...

. Hearing

Boulez Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 19255 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war contemporary classical music. Born in Montb ...

's " Le marteau sans maitre" brought a new atonal complexity to his music, replaced by an austere paring-down following his discovery of

Edgard Varèse Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse (; also spelled Edgar; December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965) was a French and American composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States. Varèse's music emphasizes timbre and rhythm; h ...

. He actually wrote to Varèse to ask if he could study with him in New York and received a letter of refusal, not very long before Varèse died in November 1965. For the next 20 years, Jack composed somewhat intermittently, but his works included ''"Holly Bush"'', written in Poland and given a public rehearsal by the

London Sinfonietta The London Sinfonietta is an English contemporary chamber music, chamber orchestra founded in 1968 and based in London. The ensemble has headquarters at Kings Place and is Resident Orchestra at the Southbank Centre. Since its inaugural concert ...

under

Roger Norrington Sir Roger Arthur Carver Norrington (born 16 March 1934) is an English conductor. He is known for historically informed performances of Baroque, Classical and Romantic music. In November 2021 Norrington announced his retirement. Life Norri ...

at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London; a piano concerto for

Roger Woodward Roger Robert Woodward (born 20 December 1942) is an Australian classical pianist, composer, conductor, teacher and human rights activist. He is widely regarded as a leading advocate of contemporary music. Early life Roger Woodward was born ...

, which was never performed; a monodic piece for any instruments or voices, ''"You told me so yourself"'', which received performances by different soloists and groups both in England and abroad; and ''"A piece for learning"'' – a "variable" score performed under Richard Bernas's direction at the Dartington Summer School. Jack lectured at the

from 1969 to 1977, then he joined

BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, Radio drama, drama, High culture, culture and the arts ...

as a script-writer for music programmes. He left the BBC in 1993 and for the next ten years was active as a freelance music critic and devised and presented several radio programmes on music and architecture for BBC Radio 3 with the producers Tim Thorne and

Antony Pitts Antony Pitts (born 1969 in Farnborough, Kent) is an international composer, conductor, and producer. His compositions have been published by Faber Music, with CDs of choral music on Hyperion Records and other recordings on Harmonia Mundi, Nax ...

, and two notable examples of radiogenic work, ''"Chromatic Fantasy"'' and ''"From the Diary of a Fly"''. Jack has written about music regularly since 1970 for most of the quality national papers, notably

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

and, later,

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

. The other activity was as director of a series at the

Institute of Contemporary Arts The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is an modernism, artistic and cultural centre on The Mall (London), The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. Located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps a ...

(ICA) in London, devoted to new music. It ran from 1978 to 1995. In 1986 the American pianist Yvar Mikhashoff requested a tango (''"Tin-Pan Tango"'') to perform at the Almeida Festival in London. This kick-started a revival in Jack's composition. Reacting against his own earlier music and most of the experimental or

avant-garde music Avant-garde music is music that is considered to be at the forefront of innovation in its field, with the term "avant-garde" implying a critique of existing aesthetic conventions, rejection of the status quo in favor of unique or original elem ...

he promoted at the ICA, Jack now wrote music which is, broadly speaking, tonal, and in which the emphasis is on continuity and a sense of line. Among his ensemble pieces, ''"Jigsaw"'' and ''"Notelette"'' were requested and performed by Sounds Positive, while ''"Zigzag"'' was requested and performed (including a broadcast on Radio 3) by Cambridge New Music Players (now known a
"New Music Players"
His ''"Piano Trio"'' (the first of three works for the medium) was originally requested and performed by London New Music. Jack's first two string quartets were played and broadcast by The Smith Quartet, and the third, fourth, fifth and sixth recorded by the

Arditti Quartet The Arditti Quartet is a string quartet founded in 1974 and led by the British violinist Irvine Arditti. The quartet is a globally recognized promoter of contemporary classical music and has a reputation for having a very wide repertoire. They ...

for th
Deux-Elles
Of over 50 solo piano pieces, many have been performed and broadcast by Noriko Kawai and

Iain Burnside Iain Burnside is a Scottish classical pianist and accompanist, and an occasional presenter on BBC Radio 3. Following study at Merton College, Oxford, the Royal Academy of Music and the Chopin Academy, in Warsaw he became a freelance pianist, sp ...

, and all of Jack's music for piano duo has been performed by the Danish-based duo, Ingryd Thorson and Julian Thurber. Many of his scores are lodged with the British Music Information Centre
BMIC
and recordings at the

British Library Sound Archive The British Library Sound Archive, formerly the British Institute of Recorded Sound; also known as the National Sound Archive (NSA), in London, England is among the largest collections of recorded sound in the world, including music, spoken word ...

. Owing to ill health Adrian Jack no longer composes or makes public appearances.

Notes

External links

List of compositionsProfile by Nick Breckenfield
fro
www.classicalsource.comWorks available in the British Music Information CentrePiano duo Thorson and Thurber
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jack, Adrian 1943 births 20th-century British classical composers Alumni of the Royal College of Music British music critics English classical composers Living people People from Datchet English male classical composers 20th-century English composers 20th-century British male musicians