John Webb (born 1969) is an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

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 Defi ...

Biography

He was educated in

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

where he started playing the piano and viola. He began to compose at 14, and two years later attended Colchester Institute. Here he studied piano with Frank Wibaut and composition with John Joubert at the

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

. 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 who was one of the major composers of the 20th-century classical music, 20th century. His m ...

, 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 (russian: Альфре́д Га́рриевич Шни́тке, link=no, Alfred Garriyevich Shnitke; 24 November 1934 – 3 August 1998) was a Russian composer of Jewish-German descent. Among the most performed and re ...

. In his final year he completed a dissertation on Schnittke's polystylism 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 the oldest conservatoire 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 first Duke of ...

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

viol The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitc ...

harpsichord A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecín; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism ...

(commissions by

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

and Trevor Pinnock), 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 t ...

. He lectures at Birmingham Conservatoire and runs education projects for English National Opera, The Stables,

Milton Keynes Milton Keynes ( ) is a city and the largest settlement in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of its urban area was over . The River Great Ouse forms its northern boundary; a tributary ...

and the Wigmore Hall. 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 ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"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 ...

, strings and

clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...

(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: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...

* Barcarolle (1993-4) 9 mins; orchestra *''A Caribbean Dawn and Celebration'' (1993) 12 mins; orchestra and steel band *''The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman'' (1990) 13 mins; orchestra and narrator. From the book by Raymond Briggs

Choral works

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

choir A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which ...

, solo

viola The viola ( , also , ) is a string instrument that is bow (music), bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of ...

and

organ Organ may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a part of an organism Musical instruments * Organ (music), a family of keyboard musical instruments characterized by sustained tone ** Electronic organ, an electronic keyboard instrument ** Hammond ...

Chamber works

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

string quartet The term string quartet can refer 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 violinists ...

Prelude Prelude may refer to: Music *Prelude (music), a musical form *Prelude (band), an English-based folk band *Prelude Records (record label), a former New York-based dance independent record label *Chorale prelude, a short liturgical composition for ...

Waltz The waltz ( ), meaning "to roll or revolve") is a ballroom and folk dance, normally in triple ( time), performed primarily in closed position. History There are many references to a sliding or gliding dance that would evolve into the wa ...

and

Tambourin The tambourin is a low-pitched tenor drum 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'' being a generic French term ...

(1994-5) 7 mins; 4

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

s *Four

Bagatelles Bagatelle (from the Château de Bagatelle) is a billiards-derived indoor table game, the object of which is to get a number of balls (set at nine in the 19th century) past wooden pins (which act as obstacles) into holes that are guarded by wooden ...

(1994) 14 mins; free bass accordion, two violins,

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

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

contra-bassoon The contrabassoon, also known as the double bassoon, is a larger version of the bassoon, sounding an octave lower. Its technique is similar to its smaller cousin, with a few notable differences. Differences from the bassoon The reed is consid ...

, percussion * Masque (1995) 5 mins; treble

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

flute The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...

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

bassoon The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed 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 virtuo ...

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

Instrumental works

*''Sans Noir'' (1995) 9 mins; piano; also versions for harpsichord and wind quintet *''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 classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The lo ...

and

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

. 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 o ...

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 w ...

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 English classical composers Living people 20th-century classical composers 21st-century classical composers 1969 births Alumni of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire English male classical composers 20th-century English composers 20th-century British male musicians 21st-century British male musicians