John Stanley Body (7 October 1944 – 10 May 2015) was a New Zealand composer,
ethnomusicologist
Ethnomusicology is the study of music from the cultural and social aspects of the people who make it. It encompasses distinct theoretical and methodical approaches that emphasize cultural, social, material, cognitive, biological, and other dim ...
, photographer, teacher, and arts producer. As a composer, his work comprised concert music, music theatre, electronic music, music for film and dance, and audio-visual gallery installations.
A deep and long-standing interest in the music of non-Western cultures – particularly South-East Asian – influenced much of his composing work, particularly his technique of transcribing field recordings. As an organiser of musical events and projects, Body had a significant impact on the promotion of Asian music in New Zealand, as well as the promotion of New Zealand music within the country and abroad.
In 2015 he was named a New Zealand Arts Icon, the highest award given by the
New Zealand Arts Foundation
'The Arts Foundation of New Zealand Te Tumu Toi is a New Zealand arts organisation that supports artistic excellence and facilitates private philanthropy through raising funds for the arts and allocating it to New Zealand artists.
The concept ...
and the first composer to be so honoured.
In November 2020, Body's status as an Arts Icon was suspended by the Arts Foundation following allegations that Body had sexually abused male students at
Victoria University.
In January 2022, following a formal apology by the university to these students, the Arts Foundation confirmed that his award was no longer recognised by the organisation.
Biography
Jack Body was born 7 October 1944 in
Te Aroha
Te Aroha ( mi, Te Aroha-a-uta) is a rural town in the Waikato region of New Zealand with a population of 3,906 people in the 2013 census, an increase of 138 people since 2006. It is northeast of Hamilton and south of Thames. It sits at the f ...
, a town in the North Island farming district of the Waikato. Both parents came from farming families; his father, Stan, was an earthmoving contractor. Seeing his older sisters take piano lessons, Body convinced his parents to let him follow suit, and began piano lessons from William Cranna, a graduate of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and employee of the local power board. Body's first composing efforts as a child were re-composing his prescribed Royal Schools exercises and performing them at end-of-year piano recitals in the local church hall.
Body attended secondary school as a boarder at King's College, Auckland. There, his interest in both music and painting was kindled amidst the school's dynamic musical life under the leadership of music teacher L C M Saunders, with whom Body took piano and organ lessons. On completing secondary school, he applied for the
Elam School of Fine Arts
The Elam School of Fine Arts, founded by John Edward Elam, is part of the Faculty of Creative Arts and Industries at the University of Auckland. Students study degrees in fine art with an emphasis on a multidisciplinary approach. The schoo ...
but instead chose to study music at the University of Auckland, beginning a Bachelor of Music in 1963. At that time composition was not offered as a course of study at an undergraduate level; nevertheless, Body composed prolifically during his undergraduate years. While studying at the University of Auckland, Body also took organ lessons with Peter Godfrey and sang in the choir of
St. Mary's Anglican Cathedral, Parnell. In 1965 he was appointed organist and choirmaster of St. Aidan's Anglican Church in Remuera.
["Talking Music: Conversations with New Zealand Musicians", Sarah Shieff, Auckland University Press (2005).]
After graduating his BMus with first class Honours, Body began his Masters of Music in 1966, studying composition with Ron Tremain in his first year and
Robin Maconie
Robin John Maconie (born 22 October 1942) is a New Zealand composer, pianist, and writer.
Born in Auckland, New Zealand, Maconie studied with Frederick Page and Roger Savage at the Victoria University of Wellington, receiving a Master of Arts in t ...
in his second. He completed his MMus, along with an additional teaching degree, in 1967. As a postgraduate student, Body began corralling artists and musicians for events and projects. A considerable crowd of avant-garde Auckland artists gravitated around his Birdwood Crescent flat in Parnell. In 1967, while president of the New Zealand Chapter of ISCM (International Society for Contemporary Music), Body organised a festival called Aucklanders and the Arts in the University of Auckland Student Union Building.
An Arts Council Grant in 1969 enabled Body to travel to Cologne to study at
Mauricio Kagel
Mauricio Raúl Kagel (; 24 December 1931 – 18 September 2008) was an Argentine-German composer.
Biography
Kagel was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, into an Ashkenazi Jewish family that had fled from Russia in the 1920s . He studied music, his ...
’s Ferienkurse für Neue Musik. With an extension of the Arts Council Grant, Body was able to study at the Institute of Sonology in Utrecht, the Netherlands, from 1969 to 1970. Returning home in 1970 via travels through Greece, North India, and Jakarta sparked Body's lifelong fascination with non-Western musical traditions.
On his return to New Zealand, Body took up a teaching position at Tawa College in
Wellington
Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...
, but resigned after one year to focus on freelance composition projects. Body travelled to Bali and Java for four months in 1974, after which the Akademi Musik Indonesia in Yogyakarta (now in the Indonesian Arts Institute), invited him to return in 1976 as a guest lecturer. Body's return trip to Yogyakarta was supported by the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Although Body was teaching Western music practice at the Akademi, his experience living in Yogyakarta enabled him to learn about the region's traditional music, as well as make numerous field recordings of local music and environmental sounds.
After a year in Yogyakarta, Body met linguist Yono Soekarno (or Sukarno) in an Indonesian post office and who was to be his partner for his remaining 40 years.
Body was gay; fellow composer Ross Harris said that Body "was a gay artist.... that was a basic position from which he did his work".
At the end of 1977, Body and Soekarno returned to Wellington, where Body worked as a freelance composer while tutoring at Victoria University and running workshops in secondary schools. 1980 saw the retirement of
Douglas Lilburn
Douglas Gordon Lilburn (2 November 19156 June 2001) was a New Zealand composer.
Early life
Lilburn was born in Whanganui and spent his early years on the family sheep farm in the upper Turakina River valley at Drysdale. He attended Waitaki Bo ...
as composition professor at Victoria University (now the
New Zealand School of Music
The New Zealand School of Music—Te Kōkī, at Victoria University of Wellington (NZSM), is located in Wellington, New Zealand. NZSM provides a tertiary teaching faculty with programmes in Classical Performance, Jazz Performance, Music Studies, C ...
); Body applied for and was offered the position. Body remained on the composition faculty of Victoria University until his retirement in 2009.
Body lived out the rest of his life in Wellington, amidst countless travels overseas. His first trip to China was in 1985, whereupon he began formulating ideas for what would become his opera Alley, based on the life of
Rewi Alley
Rewi Alley (known in China as 路易•艾黎, Lùyì Àilí, 2 December 1897 – 27 December 1987) was a New Zealand-born writer and political activist. A member of the Chinese Communist Party, he dedicated 60 years of his life to the cause a ...
, a New Zealand political activist in China.
Celebratory concerts in honour of Body's 70th birthday were held at both the University of Auckland and Victoria University Wellington in April 2014. After a long battle with cancer, Body died 10 May 2015 in Mary Potter Hospice, Wellington, the day after his meditation on mortality "Cries: A Border Town" (originally entitled "Cries from the Border") received its Australian premiere at the 2015 Canberra International Music Festival. A memorial concert honouring his life was held at St. Andrews-on-the-Terrace, Wellington, on 24 May 2015.
Music and work
Body's earliest works, such as choral pieces ''Ave Maria Gratia Plena'' (1965), ''People Look East'' (1965), and ''Carol to St. Stephen'' (1975) reflect Body's early training as a church musician. His travel to South-East Asia in the early 1970s, where he encountered local musical traditions, significantly re-formed his compositional language. Many of Body's works are scored for both Western and non-Western instruments such as
gamelan
Gamelan () ( jv, ꦒꦩꦼꦭꦤ꧀, su, ᮌᮙᮨᮜᮔ᮪, ban, ᬕᬫᭂᬮᬦ᭄) is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. T ...
,
sheng, and
gangsa
A gangsa is a type of metallophone which is used mainly in Balinese and Javanese Gamelan music in Indonesia. In Balinese gong kebyar styles, there are two types of gangsa typically used: the smaller, higher pitched and the larger . Each instrume ...
. ''Resonance Music'' (1974), for electric guitar and 6 percussionists, features gamelan; its premiere by the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation Symphony Orchestra made first use of the
set of gamelan gifted to the orchestra in May 1974 by the Indonesian ambassador to New Zealand.
Field recordings made by Body in South-East Asia formed the source material for many of his electronic and
electro-acoustic pieces, such as ''Musik Dari Jalan'' (1975), ''Musik Anak-Anak'' (1978), ''Fanfares'' (1981), and ''Interior'' (1987). ''Intimate Histories no. 1'' (2005) features a personal oral history of Yono Soekarno, Jack's partner, coloured by field recordings which Body made in Soekarno's Indonesian hometown in 1977 and 1988.
["Body Language: Jack at 60." John Elmsly. Canzona vol 26 no 47 (2005).]
As well as creating tape pieces from these field recordings, Body also developed a process of ‘double-transcription’, which he described as transcribing the essence of the musical source in the recording in such a way that would be playable by Western musicians.
Whenever possible, Body used field recordings he himself had made, and used the original music in its entirety. Works employing these transcription techniques include ''Melodies for Orchestra'' (1983), commissioned by the
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (NZSO) is a symphony orchestra based in Wellington, New Zealand. The national orchestra of New Zealand, the NZSO is an autonomous Crown entity owned by the Government of New Zealand, per the New Zealand Sympho ...
to mark the 100th anniversary of the
University of Auckland
, mottoeng = By natural ability and hard work
, established = 1883; years ago
, endowment = NZD $293 million (31 December 2021)
, budget = NZD $1.281 billion (31 December 2021)
, chancellor = Cecilia Tarrant
, vice_chancellor = Dawn F ...
, ''Three Transcriptions'' (1988), commissioned by the
Kronos Quartet
The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet based in San Francisco. It has been in existence with a rotating membership of musicians for almost 50 years. The quartet covers a very broad range of musical genres, including contemporary classic ...
, and the orchestral work ''Pulse'' (1995), which combines transcribed material from the
Baining people
The Baining people are among the earliest continuously located inhabitants of the Gazelle Peninsula of East New Britain, Papua New Guinea; they currently live in the Baining Mountains, from which they take their name. The Baining are thought to h ...
of
East New Britain
East New Britain is a province of Papua New Guinea, consisting of the north-eastern part of the island of New Britain and the Duke of York Islands. The capital of the province is Kokopo, not far from the old capital of Rabaul, which was largely des ...
,
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...
, with fragments from symphonic works by
Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
,
Berlioz, and
Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...
.
Several of Body's works stake out a decidedly political stance. ''Little Elegies'' (1985) was commissioned by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra to celebrate the 25th anniversary of television broadcasting in New Zealand. Rather than marking the occasion with a celebration of televised communication, Body intended for the work, which featured a video reel, to critique television's sanitization of global events, trauma, and suffering.
A major work in Body's career is his opera ''Alley'', premiered at the 1998
New Zealand International Festival of the Arts. ''Alley'' is based on the life of
Rewi Alley
Rewi Alley (known in China as 路易•艾黎, Lùyì Àilí, 2 December 1897 – 27 December 1987) was a New Zealand-born writer and political activist. A member of the Chinese Communist Party, he dedicated 60 years of his life to the cause a ...
, a New Zealand-born writer, political activist, and member of the
Communist Party of China
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil ...
who lived and taught in China from the late 1920s until his death in 1987. With a libretto co-written with Geoff Chapple, Alley's biographer, the opera featured
Gansu
Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province.
The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibet ...
folk singers Ji Zheng-Zhu and Li Gui-Zhou, Beijing's
Huaxia Chamber Ensemble
''Huaxia'' (華夏, ) is a historical concept representing the Chinese nation, and came from the self-awareness of a common cultural ancestry by the various confederations of pre-Qin ethnic ancestors of Han people.
Etymology
The earliest ext ...
, and a small orchestra of New Zealand musicians. A last-minute funding cut left the opera in perilous straits, but an eleventh-hour fundraising effort by Body and Chapple secured its performance.
One recurring theme in Body's work is the music of non-Western cultures; another is non-normative sexual identity. Body's music-theatre piece Songs & Dances of Desire (2013), written while
Auckland Philharmonia
The Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra (APO) is a symphony orchestra based in Auckland, New Zealand. Its principal concert venue is the Auckland Town Hall. The APO is the accompanying ensemble for performances by NZ Opera and the Royal New Zealan ...
Composer-in-Residence, is based on the life of
Carmen Rupe
Carmen Rupe (10 October 1936 – 14 December 2011), was a New Zealand drag performer, brothel keeper, anti-discrimination activist, would-be politician and HIV/AIDS activist. Carmen Rupe was New Zealand's first drag queen to reach celebrity st ...
, an anti-discrimination and AIDS activist as well as the first
Māori
Māori or Maori can refer to:
Relating to the Māori people
* Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group
* Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand
* Māori culture
* Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...
drag performer
The term "drag" refers to the performance of exaggerated masculinity, femininity, or other forms of gender expression, usually for entertainment purposes. A drag queen is someone (usually male) who performs femininity and a drag king is someone ( ...
. The work features three vocalists: a counter-tenor performing Carmen's arias from
Bizet's eponymous opera, a female vocalist singing in
Māori
Māori or Maori can refer to:
Relating to the Māori people
* Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group
* Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand
* Māori culture
* Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...
, and an operatic
mezzo-soprano
A mezzo-soprano or mezzo (; ; meaning "half soprano") is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range lies between the soprano and the contralto voice types. The mezzo-soprano's vocal range usually extends from the A below middle C ...
singing in Spanish. The poems sung by the two female vocalists are by female poets from around the world which have been translated from their original language into English, and then re-translated into either Māori or Spanish.
In addition to concert music, Body composed prolifically for screen. He wrote the theme music for television drama ''The Longest Winter'' (1974), New Zealand's first Māori language TV drama ''Uenuku'' (1974), and New Zealand's first soap opera, ''Close to Home'' (1975). Body's first feature film soundtrack was for
Vincent Ward's ''
Vigil'' (1984). Body co-wrote with
John Gibson the soundtrack to another Ward film, ''
Rain of the Children
''Rain of the Children'' is a 2008 feature film written, directed and produced by Vincent Ward (director), Vincent Ward. It stars Rena Owen and Temuera Morrison.
In ''Rain of the Children'', Ward further explores the subject of his earlier fil ...
'' (2008).
Body was also an active art photographer, though untrained, whose unconventional work was shown in several New Zealand galleries. The ''Male Nude Series'' (1983) featured male nudes in vibrant colours, created through manipulations of the film negatives. Using a scalpel, nail-file, felt-tip pen and even ball-point pen, Body worked the images by scratching and re-colouring to evoke a painterly quality. The audio-visual installation ''Runes'' (1984), commissioned by the
Wellington Art Gallery, juxtaposed re-coloured photographs of graffiti in public toilets with recordings made in toilets of running water.
Legacy
Besides his work as a composer, Body's activities as an ambitious organiser and curator of musical events made an enormous mark both on New Zealand's composing community as well as on the cultural life of the country.
Some of Body's earlier projects were the Sonic Circuses, the first of which took place in Wellington in March 1974, commissioned by the
New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation
The New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation (NZBC) was a publicly owned company of the New Zealand Government founded in 1962. The Broadcasting Act 1976 then reformed NZBC as the Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand (BCNZ). The corporation was ...
and the New Zealand Students’ Arts Council. Loosely inspired by
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...
’s Musicircus, the 6-hour-plus event featured New Zealand music performed across eight different venues within the
Victoria University Student Union building. A second Sonic Circus followed in 1975.
As an ethnomusicologist, Body published a number of CDs of traditional Asian music. Indonesian music is documented in ''Music for Sale: Street Musicians of Yogyakarta'' (OMCD 006, and TC HLS-91), ''Music of Madura'' (CD ODE 1381) and ''Jemblung: Sung Narrative Traditions'' (PAN 2048CD). ''South of the Clouds'', a 4-CD set released on Ode Records, documented rare field recordings of Chinese ethnomusicologist Zhang Xingrong.
Body's facilitation of international exchanges played a significant role in promoting Asian music and musicians in New Zealand. In late 1974 Body assisted ethnomusicologist Allan Thomas in bringing from
Cirebon
Cirebon (, formerly rendered Cheribon or Chirebon in English) is a port city on the northern coast of the Indonesian island of Java. It is the only coastal city of West Java, located about 40 km west of the provincial border with Central Java ...
, West Java to New Zealand the country's first set of gamelan. Body later managed the Victoria University Gamelan Padhang Moncar (gamelan orchestra) for many years, during which time he commissioned several new works for the gamelan orchestra. Also while on the composition faculty at Victoria University, Body established a residency inviting musicians from regions in South-East Asia (among others,
West Java
West Java ( id, Jawa Barat, su, ᮏᮝ ᮊᮥᮜᮧᮔ᮪, romanized ''Jawa Kulon'') is a province of Indonesia on the western part of the island of Java, with its provincial capital in Bandung. West Java is bordered by the province of Banten ...
,
Bali
Bali () is a province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller neighbouring islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and Nu ...
,
Kalinga Kalinga may refer to:
Geography, linguistics and/or ethnology
* Kalinga (historical region), a historical region of India
** Kalinga (Mahabharata), an apocryphal kingdom mentioned in classical Indian literature
** Kalinga script, an ancient writ ...
, and
Minangkabau Minangkabau may refer to:
* Minangkabau culture, culture of the Minangkabau people
* Minangkabau Culture Documentation and Information Center
* Minangkabau Express, an airport rail link service serving Minangkabau International Airport (''see belo ...
) to work closely with the university's performers and composers. The year 2000 saw the 25th anniversary of Gamelan in New Zealand; to mark the occasion, Body co-organised BEAT, an international gamelan festival with over 100 international participants.
Body was an advocate for New Zealand music and composers. In 1975, Body released a three-LP set of New Zealand electroacoustic music, ''New Zealand Electronic Music'' (Kiwi-Pacific LP, SLD 44–46), realised in the electronic music studios of Victoria University. In subsequent years he would edit over twenty CDs of New Zealand music.
In 1981, at
Douglas Lilburn's behest, Body re-activated the then-dormant
Wai-te-ata Music Press, a publisher of New Zealand musical scores which Lilburn had founded.
Body was editor of Wai-te-ata Music Press from 1981 to 2013, during which time the press became the largest publisher of New Zealand music. Body founded the Nelson Composers’ Workshop in 1982, an ongoing annual gathering of young, emerging and established New Zealand composers where new works are performed and critiqued.
He promoted New Zealand music in the international sphere, serving for many years on the executive committee of the Asian Composers' League (ACL). He was artistic director of Asia-Pacific Festivals & Conferences in 1984, 1992, and 2007: ten-day events juxtaposing traditional and contemporary music of New Zealand and the Asia-Pacific region. In 2002 he curated a series of five concerts of New Zealand music at the
Ijsbreker in Amsterdam.
In 2011, Body embarked on a project to commission new works from New Zealand and Chinese composers for the traditional Chinese instruments of the
Forbidden City Orchestra, working jointly with the New Zealand String Quartet. These works were premiered in Beijing in December 2013 with subsequent performances in Auckland and Wellington in March 2014.
Allegations of sexual assault
In October 2020, a number of former students at the New Zealand School of Music reported being sexually assaulted by Body, after being asked by Victoria University to consider donating to a memorial fund in his name.
Victoria University said in response that, although no direct allegations had been made to the university, it would temporarily remove mentions of the memorial fund from its website "in recognition of the serious nature of these allegations" and investigate further.
In November 2020, the university said that it had been approached by former students who had given "very credible accounts" of abuse. The university said that it planned to work with survivors to design a restorative justice process, which could involve formal apologies, compensation and policy changes.
The Arts Foundation's chairperson Garth Gallaway also advised that it had suspended its endorsement of Body as an Arts Icon while it "awaited further information".
In January 2022, the university issued a formal apology to Body's former students, stating:
At the same time, Gallaway confirmed that Body had been removed from the list of Arts Icons and that his award was no longer recognised by the Arts Foundation.
Awards and recognition
*QEII Arts Council Grant (1969)
*Bourges Competition for Electroacoustic Music (1976, 2009)
*The KBB Citation for Services to New Zealand Music (1985)
*Guest composer at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (2000)
*
Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit
The New Zealand Order of Merit is an order of merit in the New Zealand royal honours system. It was established by royal warrant on 30 May 1996 by Elizabeth II, Queen of New Zealand, "for those persons who in any field of endeavour, have rend ...
, for services to music, education and photography (ONZM) (
2001
The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...
)
*New Zealand Music Awards: Classical CD of the Year (2002)
*Lilburn Trust Award for services to NZ music (2001)
*Featured composer at Other Minds Festival, San Francisco (2003)
*Featured composer at Encuentros International Festival, Buenos Aires (2004)
*Arts Foundation Laureate Awards (2004)
*Fulbright travel grant to the Festival of NZ Music in Santa Cruz, featured composer & curator (2005)
*Guest composer, Musik Hochschule, Lübeck, Germany (2006)
*Featured composer, Art Summit Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia (2007)
*Featured composer, 4th International Music Festival, Phnom Penh, Cambodia (2007)
*Guest composer, Brisbane Conservatory of Music, Brisbane Australia (2007)
*Featured composer, Beijing Modern Music Festival (2008)
*Featured composer, Cincinnati 08 Festival. College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati (2008)
*Qantas Film & Television Awards: Best NZ Film Score (2009)
*SOUNZ Contemporary Award finalist (2009)
*
Philip Neill Memorial Prize
The Philip Neill Memorial Prize is an annual prize administered by the University of Otago for excellence in original composition. The award is open to all past and present students of a university in New Zealand, except previous winners who are ex ...
(1965 and 2009)
*Featured composer, Foro Internacional de Música Nueva, Mexico City & Morelia (2009)
*Prize, Trivium, Bourges Competition for electroacoustic music (for Intimate History No.2 Sssteve) (2009)
*IAMIC Virtual Residence Composer (2010)
*Guest artist, Aichi University of Arts, Nagoya, Japan (2011)
*
Auckland Philharmonia
The Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra (APO) is a symphony orchestra based in Auckland, New Zealand. Its principal concert venue is the Auckland Town Hall. The APO is the accompanying ensemble for performances by NZ Opera and the Royal New Zealan ...
Composer in Residence (2012–13)
*Featured composer, Beijing Modern Music Festival (2014)
*Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards: Best Classical Album (2014)
*Arts Icon Award, Arts Foundation of New Zealand (2015)
(suspended as at November 2020)
List of works
Orchestral
*''23 Pages'' for large orchestra
*''Carmen Dances'' for solo guitar with orchestra
*''Eights on My Teaching'' for orchestra and narrator
*''Fanfare for Bert'' for orchestra
*''Fours on my teaching'' for orchestra with speaker
*''Hector's Ghost'' for orchestra
*''Hello Francois'' for orchestra
*''Little Elegies'' for orchestra
*''Meditations on Michelangelo'' for solo violin and string orchestra
*''Melodies for Orchestra''
*''My Name is Mok Bhon for orchestra''
*''Palaran: Poems of Love and War'' for orchestra with traditional Javanese singer
*''Poems of Solitary Delights'' for orchestra and tenor (narrator)
*''Pulse'' for full orchestra
*''Songs of Death and Desire'' for two mezzo-sopranos, counter-tenor, and orchestra
*''Variations'' for small orchestra, on a tone row by Webern
Chamber
*''3 Sentimental Songs'' for 3 percussionists and 1 pianist
*''African Strings'' for two guitars
*''After Bach'' for eight violins, eight violas, and four cellos
*''After Bach'' for four solo violas and 8 part massed violas
*''BAI sanxian'' for string quartet
*''Epicycle'' for string quartet
*''Fire in the Belly'' for piano trio
*''Flurry'' for three string quartets
*''Four Haiku'' for prepared piano and 21 solo strings
*''Meditations on Michelangelo'' for violin and piano
*''Nocturne'' for cello and piano
*''O Cambodia'' for mixed chamber sextet
*''O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde gross'' for ondes martenot, glass harp, woodwind and strings
*''Pain in the Arse'' for piano trio
*''Paradise Regained'' for vibraphone and piano
*''Rainforest'' for flute/alto flute and either piano or harp
*''Saetas'' for string quartet (and accordion)
*''The Caves of Ellora'' for piano and brass ensemble
*''The Garden'' for sixteen instruments
*''Three Elegies'' for chamber ensemble
*''Three Rhythmics'' for piano duet
*''Three Transcriptions'' for string quartet
*''Tribute to the Blues'' arrangements for clarinet, violin, viola, cello, and piano
*''Tribute to the Blues'' arrangements for thirteen piece ensemble
*''Turtle Time'' for piano, harp, harpsichord, organ and speaker(s)
*''Two Blues'' arranged for violin, cello and piano
*''Yunnan'' for flute, guitar/lute, sixian, and string quartet
Vocal
*''Ave Maria Gratia Plena'' for unaccompanied SATB
*''Carol to St. Stephen'' for soprano, alto and tenor soloists and SATB choir
*''Cries from the Border'' for string quartet and six voices
*''Five Lullabies'' for SATB choir or vocal ensemble
*''Fours on my teaching'' arranged for piano and speaker
*''In Memoria Memorabila'' for choir
*''In the Curve of Song'' for voice, tape, viola, flute/ piccolo and four percussionists
*''Jibrail'' for vocal octet and gongs
*''Love Sonnets of Michelangelo'' for soprano, mezzo-soprano, voice, and a dancer
*''Make Us Merry, with Canons for Brass'' for three male voices with three trumpets and three trombones
*''Marvel not Joseph'' for tenor and alto solos with SATB choir
*''Music for the New Zealand Liturgy'' for SATB choir and organ
*''Nowell (in the Lithuanian manner)'' Christmas carol for SA choir
*''Pange Lingua Gloriosi'' for choir with either ondes martenot and glass harp, or gamelan
*''Passio'' for voices, brass, woodwind and percussion
*''Pater Noster'' for 4 soloists, choir with percussion, drums and one melody instrument
*''People look East'' for unaccompanied SATB
*''Psalm 103'' for SATB choir
*''Psalm 137'' for SSAATTBB choir
*''Psalm 150'' for SATB choir
*''Psalm 150'' for SATB choir and percussion
*''Songs my Grandmother Sang'' arrangements for voice and piano
*''Song Cycle'' sound/light/image installation for voices and the sounds of wood and metal
*''The New Liturgy'' for unaccompanied SATB
*''Three Dreams & A Nightmare'' for vocal ensemble
*''Three Love Songs'' for tenor, viola and cello
*''Vox Populi'' for choir and tape
*''Waiata Maori'' for Maori singer and ensemble
*''Waiata Wahine'' for mezzo-soprano and chamber orchestra
*''Wedding Song for Saint Cecilia'' for mixed choir
Solo
*''14 Stations'' for amplified pianist
*''Aeolian Harp'' for solo violin
*''Aeolian Harp'' for solo cello
*''Aeolian Harp'' for solo viola
*''Caravan'' for solo violin
*''Five Melodies'' for piano
*''Four Stabiles'' for piano
*''Mazurka 40 – After Chopin'' for solo piano
*''Sarajevo'' for solo piano
*''The Street Where I Live'' a "landscape prelude" for piano and CD
*''Three Old-Fashioned Songs'' for piano
with Eastern instruments
*''A House in Bali'' for string quartet, gamelan, narrator and sheng (or oboe)
*''After Bach'' for gamelan, 4 solo violas and massed violas
*''Bamboo Music'' for 8 musicians playing bamboo instruments
*''BEAT (DA)'' for string quartet, Chinese instrumental ensemble and tape
*''Campur Sari'' for string quartet with Javanese musician
*''Paradise Regained'' for piano and gangsa
*''Polish Folk Dances'' for two clarinets in B flat, baritone saxophone, timpani and Javanese Gamelan
*''Resonance Music'' for electric guitar and 6 percussionists
*''The Emperor Speaks...'' for Chinese instrument ensemble
with electronics
*''Arum Manis'' for string quartet and tape
*''Duets and Choruses'' for tape
*''Encounters'' for 4-track tape and group of participants
*''Fanfares'' for tape
*''Intimate History no. 1: Yono'' electroacoustic music
*''Intimate History no. 2: ssteve'' a radiophonic work
*''Interior'' for chamber septet and tape
*''Jangkrik Genggong'' for tape
*''Kryptophones'' for tape
*''Musik Anak-Anak (Children's Music)'' for tape
*''Musik Dari Jalan (Music from the Street)'' for tape
*''Musik Mulut (Mouth Music)'' for tape
*''Poi'' for tape
*''Prelude: Azan'' environmental recordings
*''Silence and Me'' for tape
*''Sun and Steel (Homage to Mishama)'' interactive sound and image installation
*''Superimpositions'' computer music for piano
*''Tui, korimako and kokako'' for organ and birdsong (recorded)
*''Vox Humana'' for tape
*''Wananga i te rangi'' for tape
Opera/Stage
*''Alley'': an opera in two acts based on the life of Rewi Alley
*''Invocation'' for SATB choirs, Cook Island choir, bells, shofar, organ, tape and orchestra
*''Songs and Dances of Desire: In Memoriam Carmen Rupe'' for solo guitar, mezzo-soprano and counter-tenor, and orchestra
Discography
References
External links
Jack Body(external website)
Jack Bodyat SOUNZ Centre for New Zealand Music
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Body, Jack
1944 births
2015 deaths
People from Te Aroha
Male composers
Victoria University of Wellington faculty
University of Auckland alumni
Ethnomusicologists
Officers of the New Zealand Order of Merit
People educated at King's College, Auckland
New Zealand LGBT musicians
New Zealand classical composers