John Godfrey is a composer and performer, co-founder and musical director of

Icebreaker An icebreaker is a special-purpose ship or boat designed to move and navigate through ice-covered waters, and provide safe waterways for other boats and ships. Although the term usually refers to ice-breaking ships, it may also refer to sma ...

(1989-1997), founder member of

Crash Ensemble Crash Ensemble is an Irish new music ensemble, which performs a range of contemporary classical music, as well as touring and organising festivals. History The group was founded in 1997 by composer Donnacha Dennehy, conductor and pianist Andrew S ...

(1997–present), founder of the Quiet Music Ensemble, and lecturer in music at

National University of Ireland The National University of Ireland (NUI) ( ga, Ollscoil na hÉireann) is a federal university system of ''constituent universities'' (previously called '' constituent colleges'') and ''recognised colleges'' set up under the Irish Universit ...

Cork Cork or CORK may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container ***Wine cork Places Ireland * Cork (city) ** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...

. John Godfrey studied with

Oliver Knussen Stuart Oliver Knussen (12 June 1952 – 8 July 2018) was a British composer and conductor. Early life Oliver Knussen was born in Glasgow, Scotland. His father, Stuart Knussen, was principal double bass of the London Symphony Orchestra, and a ...

at the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music is a music school, conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the Undergraduate education, undergraduate to the Doctorate, doctoral level in a ...

Peter Maxwell Davies Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (8 September 1934 – 14 March 2016) was an English composer and conductor, who in 2004 was made Master of the Queen's Music. As a student at both the University of Manchester and the Royal Manchester College of Mus ...

at the Dartington Summer School and with Richard Orton at the

University of York , mottoeng = On the threshold of wisdom , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £8.0 million , budget = £403.6 million , chancellor = Heather Melville , vice_chancellor = Charlie Jeffery , students ...

, where he graduated with a BA Hons in music (1983) and an MPhil in composition (1989). In 1989 he and another York graduate, James Poke, formed the new-music group Icebreaker, which went on to become one of the most successful ensembles in its field, appearing extensively in Europe and America. The group made several CDs for Decca Argo, New Tone and Donemus, which include John's works ''Euthanasia and Garden Instruments'', ''S U S Y W I M P S'' and "Gallows Hill", as well as his arrangements of

Diderik Wagenaar Diderik Wagenaar (born 10 May 1946 in Utrecht) is a Dutch composer and musical theorist. Life and work Wagenaar has lived and worked all his adult life in The Hague. Born to a musical family that includes Johan Wagenaar, he began playing piano a ...

's ''Metrum'' and

Steve Martland Steve Martland (10 October 1954 – 7 May 2013) was an English composer. He helped to curate the Factory Classical label of Factory Records, featuring contemporary British composers. Life and music Martland was born in Liverpool, and studied co ...

's ''Shoulder to Shoulder''. John appears as a performer on all Icebreaker's CDs up to and including ''Rogue's Gallery''. In 1997, John was invited to join the

. It quickly became Ireland's foremost and most adventurous new-music ensemble, and has performed not only frequently in Dublin but also throughout Ireland, Sweden, Germany, Holland, Canada, Australia and the USA. John and UCC-graduate Sarah O'Halloran ran the 2008 Quiet Music Festival, at which the group the Quiet Music Ensemble was founded. The group performed new works by Alvin Lucier, Pauline Oliveros, David Toop, Mark Applebaum, Karen Power and Juraj Kos, all of whom were present. The Festival also included the first Deep Listening Retreat in Ireland. In 2009, the QME performed the closing night of that year's Dublin Electronic Arts Festival, with guest David Toop. Recent compositions include ''Call of the Carolina Parakeet'' (2005), for Crash Ensemble, which received its premiere in Cork in spring 2005 and ''for David Adams'' (2005), for organ, as well as a number of soundscapes, including "Hermaphrodite" for the CruX Dance Company, and The Abstract Despotisms of Calculus for Crash Ensemble. John's particular compositional influences include minimalists and post-minimalists, the most formative being, perhaps,

Louis Andriessen Louis Joseph Andriessen (; 6 June 1939 – 1 July 2021) was a Dutch composer, pianist and academic teacher. Considered the most influential Dutch composer of his generation, he was a central proponent of The Hague school of composition. Although ...

and the Hague School. He has particular interests in work that exhibits

Cage A cage is an enclosure often made of mesh, bars, or wires, used to confine, contain or protect something or someone. A cage can serve many purposes, including keeping an animal or person in captivity, capturing an animal or person, and display ...

's idea that certain kinds of new music are about "perception, and the arousal of it in us". He is fascinated with the analytical concept of depth-coherence in music - and, intermittently, other forms of human endeavour - and with performance, most especially the performance of contemporary music.

External links

*https://web.archive.org/web/20060622112746/http://www.music.ucc.ie/dept/jgprof.html *http://www.cmc.ie/composers/composer.cfm?composerID=50 {{DEFAULTSORT:Godfrey, John Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 20th-century classical composers 21st-century classical composers Alumni of the University of York Male classical composers 20th-century male musicians 21st-century male musicians