Janet Beat is a Scottish

Scottish people

The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...

 composer, music educator and music writer. She was born in Streetly

Streetly

Streetly is an area which lies mainly in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, England around 8 miles to the north of Birmingham. Streetly lies on the border of Birmingham and Walsall and is part of the West Midlands conurbation. It is adjacent to Aldridge, Sutton Coldfield, Great Barr and Four...

, Staffordshire

Staffordshire

Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 and studied piano privately and horn at the Birmingham Conservatoire (formerly the Birmingham School of Music) before reading music at Birmingham University, graduating with a Bachelor of Music degree in 1960.

After completing her studies, she took a position teaching music with the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. She won the Cunningham Award in 1962. Her music has been performed internationally.

She is one of the women pioneers in electronic music composition in Great Britain for her earliest musique concrete pieces belong to the late 1950s. Daphne Oram

Daphne Oram

Daphne Oram was a British composer and electronic musician. She was the creator of the "Oramics" technique for creating electronic sounds....

was helpful and encouraging here. The influences on her music are diverse and include non-european music as well as the sounds of nature and industry. The use of music technology allowed her to make sonic explorations and the use of microtonality. These influences also enriched her writing for acoustic instruments as in "Study of the Object no V" (1970) for unaccompanied voices, a graphic score she calls sound sculpture, "Mestra" (1979-80) for solo flutes and "Hunting Horns are Memories" (1977) for horn and tape for which she worked out quarter tone fingerings for the F/B flat double horn. How time passes is also intrigues her and she has experimented with polymetric and polytempi music.

Works

Beat composes for instruments, electronic music for tape alone and also for acoustic instruments with tape or computer. She has written for orchestra, chamber ensemble, theatre and film. Selected works include:

• After Reading 'Lessons of the War, a violin and piano sonata inspired by the poems of Henry Reed
• 2 Caprices for solo flute: "Dialogue" and "Krishna's Hymn to the Dawn"
• "Capriccii vol 1" for piano
• "Fanfare for Haydn"
• "Arabesque for guitar"
• "Vincent" Sonata for solo violin
• "5 Projects for Joan" for solo cello
• "Fireworks in Steel" for solo trumpet
• "Concealed Imaginings" for piano quintet
• "String Quartet no 1"
• "Harmony in Autumn" for 4 horns
• "The Splendour Falls.." for 3 trumpets, 3 trombones and tuba
• "En Pkein Air" for wind octet
• "Harmony in Opposites" for flute,viola and harp
• "Encounter" for flute, cello and harp (a version of the above)
• "Mexican Night of the Dead" for clarinet and violin
• "Apsara Music 1" for SSA
• "Sylvia Myrtea" for SSAA
• "Canite Tuba" for SATB
• "Piano Sonata"
• 5 Stücke for oboe
• Circe for viola solo (1974)
• Equinox Rituals: Autumn for viola and piano (1996)
• Piano Quintet: The Dream Magus for viola with 2 violins, cello and piano (2002)
• Gedenkstück für Kaethe for clarinet and viola (2003)
• Study of the object no 3 for female choir

These pieces are published by Furore Verlag, Kassel, Germany.

Unpublished music and recordings are available from The Scottish Music Centre.

She has written professional articles including:

• Monteverdi and the Opera Orchestra of his Time in Arnold, Denis and Fortune, Nigel (eds): The Monteverdi Companion. London: Faber and Faber, 1968
• Two Problems in Carissimi 's Oratorio Jephte, MR 34, 1973
• "An extension of vocal accompaniment to dance", The Laban Art of Movement Guild Magazine, (Nov.1970)
• "The Composer Speaks: Janet Beat on Cross Currents & Reflections", Stretto, vol.4, no 1 [Glasgow,1984]
• Janet Beat & Nick Pearce: "Themes & Variations: A Discussion of Some parallels between Western Music and Chinese Scroll Painting", Notis Musycall, (Glasgow, 2005)
• "Endless Pleasure", The Collector's Art, exhibition catalague, (Hunterian Art Gallery,Glasgow University, 2009)