composers

John Woolrich

• Five Pieces

Born in Cirencester in 1954, John Woolrich read English at Manchester University before studying composition at Lancaster with Edward Cowie. From 1982-85 he was Northern Arts Fellow in Composition at Durham University where he worked closely with the Northern Sinfonia. This was followed by a year as Composer in Residence at the National Centre for Orchestral Studies in London, which prompted one of his most characteristic works, The Barber's Timepiece. Since then he has been in demand as a visiting lecturer (Goldsmiths College, London and Reading University), and has taught at the Guildhall School of Music and Dartington International Summer School. In 1994 he was appointed Lecturer in Music at Royal Holloway College, London University. His continued work as an organiser of educational workshops for a number of orchestras led to the appointment in 1994 as composer in residence to the Orchestra of St John's Smith Square.

But Woolrich has always been active in British musical life as an inspired programmer and activator on various fronts and in 1989 he founded the Composers Ensemble. He thus provided himself with an ideal outlet for his talents, and the composing fraternity with a highly flexible, energetic and sympathetic group of first rate performers. The ensemble has, since its inception, already commissioned and premiered over 200 works by composers as diverse as Birtwistle, Nyman, Donatoni, Elvis Costello and Babbitt, and has recorded five CDs. In 1998 he founded the Hoxton New Music Days - a highly successful festival of experimental and avant garde works which was amalgamated in 2000 with Almeida Opera. Since 2000 he has also been Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge, where as New Music Fellow of Kettle’s Yard he devises the new music concert series.

There are several common threads running through Woolrich’s music. Firstly: song, and his are remarkable in their response to a wide range of texts from the simplest folk poem to the fantastical visions of E.T.A. Hoffmann. Secondly: machines - this influence can be felt most notably in The Barber's Timepiece, The Ghost in the Machine (toured in Japan by the BBC Symphony Orchestra) and It is midnight, Dr Schweitzer (one of Woolrich's four commissions for the Guildhall String Ensemble). Thirdly: early music and the art of "re-composition" has resulted in some of his most performed works. Among these are Ulysses Awakes, Ariadne Laments (for the Taverner Players), Favola in Musica I & II (all reworkings of Monteverdi); a series of works related to or inspired by Mozart: The theatre represents a garden: night (for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment) and Si va facendo notte (premiered in Salzburg during the Mozart celebrations of 1992); and three Purcell pieces, commissioned as part of the tercentenary celebrations in 1995.

Woolrich's music has been featured at many festivals, including Bath, Cheltenham, Aldeburgh, Lichfield, Brighton, Three Choirs, Spitalfields, Meltdown, Frankfurt, Duisburg and Ars Nova in Brussels. In addition, he was Featured Composer at the 1998 Norwich and Norfolk Festival. The orchestral and chamber orchestral music has been performed by such orchestras as the BBC Symphony, Ulster, St Louis Symphony, BBC Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia, European Community Youth Orchestra and the Orchestra of St John's.

His work includes an Oboe Concerto, commissioned by the BBC for Nicholas Daniel and the BBC Symphony Orchestra for the 1996 Proms; an opera, In the House of Crossed Desires (to a libretto by Marina Warner), commissioned by Music Theatre Wales and Cheltenham Festival for the 1996 Cheltenham Festival, a Cello Concerto for Steven Isserlis and the Philharmonia, commissioned by the Norwich Festival and premiered there in October 1998, and a Concerto for Orchestra, commissioned by the London Mozart Players for the Gala Concert celebrating their 50th anniversary in February 1999.

More recent pieces include a suite from Bitter Fruit for the London Sinfonietta and Thomas Adès, and more works for the Britten Sinfonia, including Double Mercury for the 2003 BBC Proms. Arcangelo, a work based on Corelli, was premiered by The Academy of Ancient Music, who commissioned the work, at Symphony Hall, Birmingham in March 2003.