John Webb (born 1969) is an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

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

He was educated in

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

where he started playing the piano and viola. He began to compose at 14, and two years later attended

Colchester Institute Colchester Institute is a large provider of further and higher education based in the city of Colchester. Colchester Institute provides full-time and part-time courses for a wide variety of learners including 16 to 19 year olds, apprentices, ad ...

. Here he studied piano with Frank Wibaut and composition with John Joubert at the

Birmingham Conservatoire Royal Birmingham Conservatoire is a music school, drama school and concert venue in Birmingham, England. It provides education in music, acting, and related disciplines up to postgraduate level. It is a centre for scholarly research and doct ...

. As a founding member of the Thallein Ensemble, he performed works by Berio,

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 ...

, Finnissy,

Ives Ives is both a surname and a given name. Notable people with the name include: Surname * Alice Emma Ives (1876–1930), American dramatist, journalist * Burl Ives (1909–1995), American singer, author and actor * Charles Ives (1874–1954), Ame ...

and

Schnittke Alfred Garrievich Schnittke (24 November 1934 – 3 August 1998) was a Russian composer. Among the most performed and recorded composers of late 20th-century classical music, he is described by musicologist Ivan Moody as a "composer who was conc ...

. In his final year he completed a dissertation on Schnittke's

polystylism Polystylism is the use of multiple styles or techniques in literature, art, film, or, especially, music. Some prominent contemporary polystylist composers include Peter Maxwell Davies, Alfred Schnittke, and John Zorn. Polystylist composers fro ...

and was the soloist in his piano concerto. After graduating from Birmingham Conservatoire with a first class degree, he studied for three years at the

Royal Academy of Music The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is one of the oldest music schools in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the firs ...

with Christopher Brown. In his last year he was Leverhulme Composition Fellow and won the major composition prizes; he graduated with MMus and DipRAM. He went on to develop contacts with

period instrument In the historically informed performance movement, musicians perform classical music using restored or replicated versions of the instruments for which it was originally written. Often performances by such musicians are said to be "on authentic ...

performers and has written works for 'old' instruments which have recently been revived, including

viol The viola da gamba (), or viol, or informally gamba, is a bowed and fretted string instrument that is played (i.e. "on the leg"). It is distinct from the later violin family, violin, or ; and it is any one of the earlier viol family of bow (m ...

harpsichord A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a musical keyboard, keyboard. Depressing a key raises its back end within the instrument, which in turn raises a mechanism with a small plectrum made from quill or plastic that plucks one ...

(commissions by

Gary Cooper Gary Cooper (born Frank James Cooper; May 7, 1901May 13, 1961) was an American actor known for his strong, silent screen persona and understated acting style. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice and had a further three nominations, ...

and

Trevor Pinnock Trevor David Pinnock (born 16 December 1946 in Canterbury, England) is a British harpsichordist and conductor. He is best known for his association with the period-performance orchestra The English Concert, which he helped found and direct ...

), and

baroque orchestra A Baroque orchestra is an ensemble for mixed instruments that existed during the Baroque era of Western Classical music, commonly identified as 1600–1750. Baroque orchestras are typically much smaller, in terms of the number of performers, than ...

. He lectures at Birmingham Conservatoire and runs education projects for

English National Opera English National Opera (ENO) is a British opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with The Royal Opera. ENO's productions are sung in E ...

, The Stables,

Milton Keynes Milton Keynes ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of Milton Keynes urban area, its urban area was 264,349. The River Great Ouse forms t ...

and the

Wigmore Hall The Wigmore Hall is a concert hall at 36 Wigmore Street, in west London. It was designed by Thomas Edward Collcutt and opened in 1901 as the Bechstein Hall; it is considered to have particularly good building acoustics, acoustics. It specialis ...

. He taught composition and general studies at the Junior Department of the

until leaving at the end of the 2005-2006 academic year. He has since returned to cover David Knotts' timetable whilst his colleague was in America.

Selected works

Orchestral works

*Concerto for classical

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German language, German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a Reed (mou ...

, strings and

clarinet The clarinet is a Single-reed instrument, single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore (wind instruments), bore and a flared bell. Clarinets comprise a Family (musical instruments), family of instrume ...

(1997) 20 mins *''White Stones'' (1995-6) 8 mins;

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * String instruments, such as the violin, viola, cello, ...

Barcarolle A barcarolle ( ; from French, also barcarole; originally, Italian barcarola or barcaruola, from 'boat') is a traditional folk song sung by Venetian gondoliers, or a piece of music composed in that style. In classical music, two of the most fa ...

(1993-4) 9 mins; orchestra *''A Caribbean Dawn and Celebration'' (1993) 12 mins; orchestra and

steel band The steelpan (also known as a pan or steel drum) is a musical instrument originating in Trinidad and Tobago from Afro–Trinidadians and Tobagonians, Afro-Trinidadians. Steelpan musicians are called pannists. In 1992, the steelpan was declared ...

*''The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman'' (1990) 13 mins; orchestra and

narrator Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. Narration is conveyed by a narrator: a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deliver information to the ...

. From the book by

Raymond Briggs Raymond Redvers Briggs (18 January 1934 – 9 August 2022) was an English illustrator, cartoonist, graphic novelist and author. Achieving critical and popular success among adults and children, he is best known in Britain for his 1978 story ...

Choral works

*''Into His Marvellous Light'' (1997) 5 mins;

choir A choir ( ), also known as a chorale or chorus (from Latin ''chorus'', meaning 'a dance in a circle') is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform or in other words ...

, solo

viola The viola ( , () ) is a string instrument of the violin family, and is usually bowed when played. Violas are slightly larger than violins, and have a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the ...

and

organ Organ and organs may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a group of tissues organized to serve a common function * Organ system, a collection of organs that function together to carry out specific functions within the body. Musical instruments ...

Chamber works

*''Cries of London'' (1994) 25 mins;

string quartet The term string quartet refers to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two Violin, violini ...

* Prelude,

Waltz The waltz ( , meaning "to roll or revolve") is a ballroom dance, ballroom and folk dance, in triple (3/4 time, time), performed primarily in closed position. Along with the ländler and allemande, the waltz was sometimes referred to by the ...

and

Tambourin The tambourin () is a low-pitched tenor drum of the French region of Provence, which has also lent its name to a Provençal dance accompanied by lively duple meter music. The dance is so named because the music imitates the drum (''tambour'' bei ...

(1994-5) 7 mins; 4

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

s *Four Bagatelles (1994) 14 mins; free bass accordion, two violins,

cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

*''On Christmas Night...'' (1994) 9 mins; 3 baroque oboes, 3 oboes da caccia, 2 baroque bassoons, 1 baroque contra-bassoon,

, percussion *

Masque The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment that flourished in 16th- and early 17th-century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio (a public version of the masque was the pageant). A mas ...

(1995) 5 mins; treble

, two tenor viols, bass viol *''Calm'' (1992) 9 mins;

flute The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...

, oboe, clarinet (or viola), violin, cello *''PUMP'' (1992) 7 mins; 4

bassoon The bassoon is a musical instrument in the woodwind family, which plays in the tenor and bass ranges. It is composed of six pieces, and is usually made of wood. It is known for its distinctive tone color, wide range, versatility, and virtuosity ...

s *Sextet for Piano and Wind *Prelude and Chaconne;

Instrumental works

*''Sans Noir'' (1995) 9 mins; piano; also versions for harpsichord and

wind quintet A wind quintet, also known as a woodwind quintet, is a group of five wind players (most commonly flute, oboe, clarinet, French horn and bassoon). Unlike the string quartet (of 4 string instruments) with its homogeneous blend of sound color, the i ...

*''Here's Fine Rosemary, Sage and Thyme...'' (1994) 3 mins; viola *

Pastorale Pastorale refers to something of a pastoral nature in music, whether in form or in mood. In Baroque music, a pastorale is a movement of a melody in thirds over a drone bass, recalling the Christmas music of ''pifferari'', players of the traditi ...

(1993) 5 mins; organ *''Five Atmospheres'' (1998) 9 mins; piano *''Chromatic Rhapsody'' (1987) 5 mins; two pianos *''Hop-bodee-boody's Last Will and Testament'' for soprano, 4 violas and harpsichord (1998)

Vocal works

* Love Songs (1992) 15 mins;

tenor A tenor is a type of male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. Composers typically write music for this voice in the range from the second B below m ...

and

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

. Texts by

Roger McGough Roger Joseph McGough (; born 9 November 1937) is an English poet, performance poet, broadcaster, children's author and playwright. He presents the BBC Radio 4 programme '' Poetry Please'', as well as performing his own poetry. McGough was one ...

and

Tony Harrison Tony Harrison (born 30 April 1937) is an English poet, translator and playwright. He was born in Beeston, Leeds and he received his education in Classics from Leeds Grammar School and Leeds University. He is one of Britain's foremost verse ...

References

Profile
on ''BMIC'' website (citing above quote by the composer)
Profile
on ''Sound and Music'' website

External links

Composer's website

on Composers.co.uk
Goals
as cited above in their probable original context

on ''Tête à Tête'' website {{DEFAULTSORT:Webb, John Living people 20th-century English classical composers 21st-century English classical composers 21st-century English male composers 1969 births Alumni of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire English male classical composers 20th-century English male musicians