John Palmer (composer)


John Palmer is a British composer, pianist, musicologist and university professor. His compositions are published by Composers Edition. He has held academic posts at the University of Oxford, the University of Hertfordshire, and the University of Music and Performing Arts of Stuttgart.
WWW johnpalmer.org

Life

John Palmer began his music career as a pianist in the mid-seventies. In the 1980s he continued his piano studies with Grazia Wendling and Eva Serman at the Lucerne School of Music, where he also studied composition with Edison Denisov and Vinko Globokar. He continued his composition studies in London at Trinity College of Music, Royal Holloway, University of London and at City University London where he obtained a PhD titled "Formal Strategies in Composition" in 1994. Further studies include composition with Vinko Globokar at the Dartington Summer School and privately with Jonathan Harvey, Analysis with Jonathan Cross at the University of Bristol, and Conducting with Alan Hazeldine at the Guildhall School of Music And Drama in London.
Since 1987 Palmer has written more than 130 compositions for opera, music theatre, orchestral, instrumental, vocal, chamber music, and electroacoustic music. Several of Palmer’s early compositions have been archived in the British Music Collection, a national database of British composers established in the 20th century.
Palmer has taught at the and is Professor of Listening Education at the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart.

Music

In the 1980s, the music of John Cage and free-jazz influenced the aleatoric aesthetic of Palmer’s early chamber works, an approach which he later rejected. In the early 1990s, Palmer delved into the European avant-garde and electroacoustic music, two directions that will have a profound impact on his future musical output. By the end of the 1980s Palmer developed a distinctive musical language including techniques of spectral music and a sensitivity for sonic spaces often articulated on the threshold of silence. Many of his works from this period bear references to Eastern cultures, such as Zen,, Satori, Still, and Waka ) and Tibetan Buddhism, Shambhala ). However, the meditative nature of this influences often intertwines with the virtuosity of 20th-century European modernism, characterising a kind of lyricism that reflects a strong search for communication. This feature is apparent in many instrumental and chamber music works, such as the Second String Quartet, Transitions, Over, Transparence, and the opera Re di Donne where instrumental virtuosity is reinforced by electronics. The fusion of acousmatic music and instrumental virtuosity can be heard in works like Epitaph, Encounter, Transfiguration, Transient, Thereafter, Transparence.

Selected works

Opera

  • Re di Donne Chamber Opera in One Act, for 4 singers and ensemble with electronics

Orchestra

  • Omen for orchestra and choir
  • There for string orchestra with string quartet
  • Concertino
  • Hypothetical Questions
  • Piano Concerto for piano, orchestra and choir
  • Double Concerto for Violin and Cello
  • Not Two for orchestra

Ensemble

  • Asgard for 2 speakers and ensemble
  • Koan for shakuhachi and ensemble
  • Waka for percussion and ensemble
  • Legend for harp and ensemble
  • You for trombone and ensemble
  • Transparence for viola and ensemble with electronics
  • Blurring definitions fl, cl, bs, perc, 2 vl, vla, vc, db

Music Theatre

Chamber music

  • First String Quartet
  • Hellawes flute trio
  • Theorem violin, cello, piano
  • Second String Quartet
  • Encounter harpsichord, world percussion, electronics
  • Between violin and harpsichord
  • Transitions violin, clarinet, cello, piano
  • Still bass flute, 6 & 12-string guitar, viola
  • Nowhere clarinet, piano, electronics
  • Afterglow alto flute, piano, electronics
  • Transference flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano
  • Crossing dialogues violin, cello, vibraphone and piano
  • Of Shadows Unveiled flute, bass clarinet and piano
  • Towards the soul trombone quartet
  • Conditional action two flutes
  • Alba violin, viola, cello, piano
  • Transgression solo cello, violin, flute,piano

Instrumental

  • Hieroglyphs piano
  • Three Preludes piano
  • Poem for the Absurd piano
  • Musica Reservata piano
  • Shambhala piano
  • Satori harpsichord
  • Hinayana oboe
  • Mosaic harpsichord
  • Drang accordion
  • Without violin
  • Almost cello
  • Over violin
  • En avant piano
  • Se potessi piano
  • Eulogy piano
  • Verso l’alto viola
  • Three Haikus shakuhachi
  • Hypothesis percussion
  • Yahari guitar
  • Lux Vivens cello
  • Lux Ardens cello
  • Lux Serena cello
  • Lux Obscura cello

Electroacoustic (including acousmatic)

  • Beyond the bridge cello and electronics
  • Renge-kyo piano and electronics
  • Encounter harpsichord, world percussions, electronics
  • ...as it flies... tape
  • Transfiguration trombone and electronics
  • I am tape
  • After silence 1 piano and electronics
  • Inwards bass flute and electronics
  • In the Temple tape
  • Present Otherness tape
  • Mémoires tape
  • Woanders piano and electronics

Awards

  • 1990 - Cornelius Cardew Competition, England: special mention for In memory of a friend, for soprano and piano.
  • 1992 - City of Lucerne Cultural Prize, Switzerland: first prize winner with Omen, for orchestra and choir.
  • 1994 - Bourges International Competition for Electroacoustic Music, France: second prize winner with Beyond the Bridge, for cello & electronics.
  • 1995 - Surrey Sinfonietta Orchestral Competition Contest, England: first prize winner with Concertino, for orchestra.
  • 1995 - 1st Tokyo International Competition for Chamber Music Composition: second prize winner with Theorem.
  • 1996 - City of Klagenfurt International Composition Prize, Austria: second prize winner with Second String Quartet.
  • 2009 - Bourges International Competition for Electroacoustic Music, France: selection of Transient for soprano, prepared piano & electronics.
  • 2010 - Città di Udine International Competition for Composers, Italy: Special Mention and Medal of the President of the Italian Republic for Transference, for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano.
  • 2011 - Presque Rien International Competition Prize, Paris: prize winner with Mémoires, for electroacoustic sounds.

Recordings

  • ...as it flies...,
  • Between,
  • Beyond The Bridge,
  • Beyond The Bridge,, Synthese 8, LD278058/59
  • Drang.
  • Encounter,
  • Epitaph,
  • Epitaph,, 007
  • Fado,
  • Koan,
  • Hinayana,
  • I Am - Animato Records ACD6143.
  • In the Temple - Animato Records ACD6144.
  • Inwards, Mémoires in Presque Rien Competition Prize CD Label, Vol. I, Paris 2017.
  • Musica Reservata, ACD6136
  • Nowhere, Nowhere to hide in Other Places, .
  • Phonai.
  • Phonai, Electroshock, 2 ELCD 006
  • Present Otherness in Other Presences
  • Renge-Kyo,
  • Satori, Shambhala in Other Places, . Somewhere in Other Places, .
  • Spirits,
  • Still,
  • Theorem, Living Artists Recordings, Vol.3. There in Other Places, NEOS 12423. Thereafter in Other Places, .
  • Transfiguration.
  • Transient. Verso L’Alto in 20 Jahre Ensemble Plus, ORF, 2016.Verso L’Alto in Other Places,
  • Vision,
  • Waka, Without, in Dots/Lines, Woanders in Other Places, .