Jonty Harrison is an

electroacoustic music Electroacoustic music is a Music genre, genre of Western art music in which composers use recording technology and audio signal processing to manipulate the timbres of Acoustics, acoustic sounds in the creation of pieces of music. It originated a ...

composer born 27 April 1952 in

Scunthorpe Scunthorpe () is an industrial town in Lincolnshire, England, and the county's third most populous settlement after Lincoln, England, Lincoln and Grimsby, with a population of 81,286 in 2021. It is the administrative centre and largest settleme ...

, and currently living in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

, England.

Career

Jonty Harrison studied with

Bernard Rands Bernard Rands (born 2 March 1934 in Sheffield, England) is a British and American contemporary classical composer. He studied music and English literature at the University of Wales, Bangor, and composition with Pierre Boulez and Bruno Maderna ...

at the

University of York The University of York (abbreviated as or ''York'' for Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a public Collegiate university, collegiate research university in York, England. Established in 1963, the university has expanded to more than thir ...

, graduating with a DPhil in Composition in 1980. Between 1976 and 1980 he lived in London, working at the National Theatre (where he produced the tape components for many productions, including ''Tamburlaine the Great'', ''Julius Caesar'', ''Brand'' and ''Amadeus'') and City University. In 1980 he joined the music department of the

University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university in Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as ...

, where he was Professor of Electroacoustic Composition, as well as Director of

BEAST Beast most often refers to: * Animal, a multicellular, eukaryotic organism in the biological kingdom Animalia * The Beast (Revelation), one of three beasts described in the Book of Revelation * Monster, a type of creature found in fiction, folklo ...

(Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre) and the Electroacoustic Music Studios; for ten years he was Artistic Director of the department's annual Barber Festival of Contemporary Music. He has played an active role in musical life, making conducting appearances with the

Birmingham Contemporary Music Group Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (BCMG) is a British chamber ensemble based in Birmingham, England specialising in the performance of Contemporary classical music, new and contemporary music. BCMG performs regularly at the CBSO Centre and Symph ...

(most notably conducting

Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groun ...

's ''Momente'' in Birmingham, Huddersfield and London), the University New Music Ensemble and the University Orchestra (most recently in

Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of ...

's and Vic Hoyland's ''Vixen''). He was a board member of

Sonic Arts Network Sonic Arts Network was a UK-based organisation, established in 1979, that aimed to enable both audiences and practitioners to engage with the art of sound through a programme of festivals, events, commissions and education projects. Its honorary ...

(SAN) for many years (and Chair between 1993 and 1996). He has also been on the Council and Executive Committee of the

Society for the Promotion of New Music The Society for the Promotion of New Music (SPNM), originally named The Committee for the Promotion of New Music, was founded in January 1943 in London by the émigré composer Francis Chagrin, to promote the creation and performance of new music i ...

and was a member of the Music Advisory Panel of the

Arts Council of Great Britain The Arts Council of Great Britain was a non-departmental public body dedicated to the promotion of the fine arts in Great Britain. It was divided in 1994 to form the Arts Council of England (now Arts Council England), the Scottish Arts Council (l ...

. As a composer he has received several prizes and mentions in the Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Awards (including a Euphonie d'or for ''Klang'' in 1992 cited as one of the most significant works in the Bourges competition's history), two Distinctions and two Mentions in the Prix Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria), First Prize in the Musica Nova competition (Prague), a Lloyds Bank National Composers' Award, a PRS Prize for Electroacoustic Composition, an Arts Council Composition Bursary and research grants from the Leverhulme Trust and from the Arts and Humanities Research Board. Commissions have come from many leading performers and studios, including two each from the

Groupe de recherches musicales A group is a military unit or a military formation that is most often associated with military aviation. Air and aviation groups The terms group and wing differ significantly from one country to another, as well as between different branches ...

(Ina-GRM, Paris) and the Institut international de musique électroacoustique de Bourges ( IMEB – formerly the Groupe de musique expérimentale de Bourges), the International Computer Music Association ( ICMA),

MAFILM Mafilm was established in 1948. It has been the largest and most significant film studio in Hungary and a strategic base for the Hungarian film industry. Mafilm's history has seen days of glory, just as it has survived severe agonies. The roots ...

/Magyar Rádió (Budapest),

IRCAM IRCAM (French: ''Ircam, '', English: Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music) is a French institute dedicated to the research of music and sound, especially in the fields of Avant-garde music, avant garde and Electroacoustic ...

/ Ensemble intercontemporain (Paris), the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

, Birmingham City Council, the

, the Fine Arts Brass Ensemble, the Nash Ensemble, Singcircle,

John Harle John Crofton Harle (born 20 September 1956) is an English saxophonist, composer, record producer, conductor and educator. He is an Ivor Novello Award winner, has been the recipient of two Royal Television Society awards and has contributed dir ...

, Beverly Davison, Harry Sparnaay, and Jos Zwaanenburg. Despite renouncing instrumental composition in 1992, he wrote ''Abstracts'', a work for 8-channel tape and large orchestra, in 1998. His 60-minute multi-channel piece Going/Places was premiered at the Huddersfield Festival in November 2015. His music is performed and broadcast worldwide, and several works are available on empreintes DIGITALes, SAN/NMC, Cultures électroniques/Mnémosyne Musique Média, and CDCM/Centaur.

Works

* ''Postcards Home'' (2017) * ''Going/Places'' (2015) * ''Afterthoughts'' (2007) * ''Undertow'' (2007) * ''Free Fall'' (2006) * ''Internal Combustion'' (2005–06) * ''Rock 'n' Roll'' (2004) * ''Streams'' (1999) * ''Splintering'' (1997) * ''Surface Tension'' (1996) * ''Unsound Objects'' (1995) * ''Sorties'' (1995) * ''Hot Air'' (1995) * ''...et ainsi de suite...'' (1992) * ''Aria'' (1988) * ''Klang'' (1982) * ''EQ'' (1980), soprano saxophone, and tape * ''Pair / Impair'' (1978)

Recordings

* ''Voyages'' (empreintes DIGITALes, IMED 07, 2016) * ''Environs'' (empreintes DIGITALes, IMED 0788, 2007) * ''Etc'' with Horacio Vaggione,

Trevor Wishart Trevor Wishart (born 11 October 1946) is an English composer, based in York. Wishart has contributed to composing with digital audio media, both fixed and interactive. He has also written extensively on the topic of what he terms " sonic art", a ...

( EMF, EMF 053, 2004) * ''Évidence matérielle'' (empreintes DIGITALes, IMED 2052, 2000) * ''Articles indéfinis'' (empreintes DIGITALes, IMED 9627, 1996)

References

*''empreintes'' DIGITAL''es''. "Jonty Harrison Artist Biography." http://www.electrocd.com/en/bio/harrison_jo (with permission) *Kennedy, Michael. ''The Oxford Dictionary of Music''. 2006. 985 pages, *Montague, Stephen. "Harrison, Jonty ouglas Jonathan Taylor" ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition. Edited by

Stanley Sadie Stanley John Sadie (; 30 October 1930 – 21 March 2005) was a British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (1980), which was published as the first edition ...

and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001.

External links

Official webpageStaff profile
on the website of the University of Birmingham's Music Department
BEAST
–

Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre, or as it is more commonly known, BEAST, is a sound diffusion system specifically designed for the performance of electroacoustic music. It consists of a set of loudspeakers connected to a computer, usuall ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harrison, Jonty Living people Electroacoustic music composers British composers 1952 births Alumni of the University of York

Career

Works

Recordings

References

Further reading

External links