John A Butt
Encyclopedia
John A Butt is an orchestral and choral conductor, organist, harpsichordist and scholar who has held the Gardiner Chair of Music
at the University of Glasgow
since 2001, and has led the Dunedin Consort, a professional vocal ensemble centered in Edinburgh
, since 2003.
in the West Midlands
, England
, in 1960. He was educated at Solihull School
on a music scholarship. In 1979 he began his undergraduate education at University of Cambridge, where he held the position of organ scholar at King's College
. His organ teachers at Cambridge included the noted organists Peter Hurford
and Gillian Weir
. He received his Ph.D. at Cambridge in 1987. After graduation, he lectured at the University of Aberdeen
and was a Fellow of Magdalene College Cambridge. In 1989, he became University Organist and Assistant Professor of Music at the University of California, Berkeley
; he was promoted to Associate Professor in 1992. In 1997, he returned to Cambridge University as a University Lecturer and Fellow of King's College. Since October 2001 he has been the Gardiner Chair of Music
at the University of Glasgow
; he also served as Head of the Music Department from 2001 to 2005. Since 2003 he has been conductor of the Dunedin Consort (a professional vocal ensemble in Edinburgh
, Scotland
).
In 2003 John Butt received the Dent Medal of the Royal Musical Association
; in January 2011 he became the fifth recipient of the Royal Academy of Music
/Kohn Foundation's Bach Prize.
As a guest conductor, he has appeared with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra
, the Irish Baroque Orchestra
, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
and orchestras at the Berkeley Early Music Festival and Göttingen Handel Festival.
He co-edited the Cambridge Companion to Bach (1997) - for which he contributed two articles on Bach's metaphysics - was consultant editor for the Oxford Companion to Bach, and joint editor (together with Tim Carter) of the Cambridge History of Seventeenth Century Music (2005).
label, of music by J.S. Bach, Johann Kuhnau
, Johann Pachelbel
, Georg Philipp Telemann
, Henry Purcell
, John Blow
, Matthew Locke
, Juan Bautista Jose Cabanilles, Girolamo Frescobaldi
, and Sir Edward Elgar. As a continuo
player he has recorded with many ensembles. As a choral conductor, he has released four recordings with the Dunedin Consort for the Linn label. These include:
Gardiner Professor of Music, Glasgow
The Gardiner Professor Of Music at the University of Glasgow was founded in 1928 and endowed by the gift of William Guthrie Gardiner and Sir Frederick Crombie Gardiner, shipowners in Glasgow...
at the University of Glasgow
University of Glasgow
The University of Glasgow is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ancient universities. Located in Glasgow, the university was founded in 1451 and is presently one of seventeen British higher education institutions ranked amongst the top 100 of the...
since 2001, and has led the Dunedin Consort, a professional vocal ensemble centered in Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, since 2003.
Biography
John Butt was born in SolihullSolihull
Solihull is a town in the West Midlands of England with a population of 94,753. It is a part of the West Midlands conurbation and is located 9 miles southeast of Birmingham city centre...
in the West Midlands
West Midlands (county)
The West Midlands is a metropolitan county in western central England with a 2009 estimated population of 2,638,700. It came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972, formed from parts of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire. The...
, 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...
, in 1960. He was educated at Solihull School
Solihull School
Solihull School is a British Independent school situated near the centre of Solihull, West Midlands, England.2010 saw Solihull School celebrate its 450th anniversary since its foundation in 1560....
on a music scholarship. In 1979 he began his undergraduate education at University of Cambridge, where he held the position of organ scholar at King's College
King's College, Cambridge
King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....
. His organ teachers at Cambridge included the noted organists Peter Hurford
Peter Hurford
Peter Hurford OBE is a British organist, born St Cecilia's day 1930 in Minehead, Somerset.Educated at Blundell's School, he later studied both music and law at Jesus College, Cambridge, graduating with dual degrees, subsequently obtaining an enviable reputation for both musical scholarship and...
and Gillian Weir
Gillian Weir
Dame Gillian Constance Weir DBE is a New Zealand organist.-Biography:Gillian Weir was a co-winner of the Auckland Star Piano Competition at 19, playing Mozart. A year later she won a scholarship of the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music in London...
. He received his Ph.D. at Cambridge in 1987. After graduation, he lectured at the University of Aberdeen
University of Aberdeen
The University of Aberdeen, an ancient university founded in 1495, in Aberdeen, Scotland, is a British university. It is the third oldest university in Scotland, and the fifth oldest in the United Kingdom and wider English-speaking world...
and was a Fellow of Magdalene College Cambridge. In 1989, he became University Organist and Assistant Professor of Music at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
; he was promoted to Associate Professor in 1992. In 1997, he returned to Cambridge University as a University Lecturer and Fellow of King's College. Since October 2001 he has been the Gardiner Chair of Music
Gardiner Professor of Music, Glasgow
The Gardiner Professor Of Music at the University of Glasgow was founded in 1928 and endowed by the gift of William Guthrie Gardiner and Sir Frederick Crombie Gardiner, shipowners in Glasgow...
at the University of Glasgow
University of Glasgow
The University of Glasgow is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ancient universities. Located in Glasgow, the university was founded in 1451 and is presently one of seventeen British higher education institutions ranked amongst the top 100 of the...
; he also served as Head of the Music Department from 2001 to 2005. Since 2003 he has been conductor of the Dunedin Consort (a professional vocal ensemble in Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
).
In 2003 John Butt received the Dent Medal of the Royal Musical Association
Royal Musical Association
The Royal Musical Association is a British scholarly society and charity. Founded in 1874, the Association claims to be the second oldest musicological society in the world, after that of the Netherlands...
; in January 2011 he became the fifth recipient of the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
/Kohn Foundation's Bach Prize.
As a guest conductor, he has appeared with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra
Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra
Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra is an orchestra based in San Francisco, which is dedicated to historically informed performance of Baroque, Classical and early Romantic music on original instruments. The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra was founded in 1981 by harpsichordist, teacher and early music...
, the Irish Baroque Orchestra
Irish Baroque Orchestra
The Irish Baroque Orchestra is an early music ensemble based in the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Baroque Orchestra is Ireland’s only professional period instrument orchestra. It was established in 1996 by Mark Duley and Thérèse Timoney. The artistic director is currently Monica Huggett.The...
, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is a British period instrument orchestra. The OAE is a resident orchestra of the Southbank Centre, London, associate orchestra at Glyndebourne Festival Opera and has its headquarters at Kings Place...
and orchestras at the Berkeley Early Music Festival and Göttingen Handel Festival.
Publications
Books have included- Bach Interpretation (Cambridge University Press, 1990; the book is based on Butt's doctoral thesis, a study of articulation marks in primary sources of the music of J.S. Bach. The book won the Scheide Award of the American Bach Society.)
- Bach - Mass in B Minor (Cambridge Music Handbooks, 1991)
- Music Education and the Art of Performance in the German Baroque (Cambridge University Press, 1994)
- Playing with History - the historical approach to musical performance (Cambridge University Press, 2002; shortlisted for the book prize of the British Academy)
- Bach's Dialogue with Modernity (Cambridge University Press, 2010; the book centers on Bach's St. Matthew Passion)
He co-edited the Cambridge Companion to Bach (1997) - for which he contributed two articles on Bach's metaphysics - was consultant editor for the Oxford Companion to Bach, and joint editor (together with Tim Carter) of the Cambridge History of Seventeenth Century Music (2005).
Discography
As a harpsichordist, organist, or clavichordist, Butt has made eleven recordings for the Harmonia mundiHarmonia Mundi
Harmonia Mundi is an independent music record label founded in 1958 by Bernard Coutaz in Arles . The Latin phrase means "world harmony"....
label, of music by J.S. Bach, Johann Kuhnau
Johann Kuhnau
Johann Kuhnau was a German composer, organist and harpsichordist.-Biography :Kuhnau was born in Geising, Saxony. He grew up in a religious Lutheran family. At age nine, he auditioned successfully for the Kreuzschule in Dresden...
, Johann Pachelbel
Johann Pachelbel
Johann Pachelbel was a German Baroque composer, organist and teacher, who brought the south German organ tradition to its peak. He composed a large body of sacred and secular music, and his contributions to the development of the chorale prelude and fugue have earned him a place among the most...
, Georg Philipp Telemann
Georg Philipp Telemann
Georg Philipp Telemann was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. Almost completely self-taught in music, he became a composer against his family's wishes. After studying in Magdeburg, Zellerfeld, and Hildesheim, Telemann entered the University of Leipzig to study law, but eventually...
, Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...
, John Blow
John Blow
John Blow was an English Baroque composer and organist, appointed to Westminster Abbey in 1669. His pupils included William Croft, Jeremiah Clarke and Henry Purcell. In 1685 he was named a private musician to James II. His only stage composition, Venus and Adonis John Blow (baptised 23 February...
, Matthew Locke
Matthew Locke (composer)
Matthew Locke was an English Baroque composer and music theorist.-Biography:As a boy, Locke was trained in the choir of Exeter Cathedral, under Edward Gibbons, the brother of Orlando Gibbons...
, Juan Bautista Jose Cabanilles, Girolamo Frescobaldi
Girolamo Frescobaldi
Girolamo Frescobaldi was a musician from Ferrara, one of the most important composers of keyboard music in the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. A child prodigy, Frescobaldi studied under Luzzasco Luzzaschi in Ferrara, but was influenced by a large number of composers, including Ascanio...
, and Sir Edward Elgar. As a continuo
Figured bass
Figured bass, or thoroughbass, is a kind of integer musical notation used to indicate intervals, chords, and non-chord tones, in relation to a bass note...
player he has recorded with many ensembles. As a choral conductor, he has released four recordings with the Dunedin Consort for the Linn label. These include:
- 2006: The MessiahMessiah (Handel)Messiah is an English-language oratorio composed in 1741 by George Frideric Handel, with a scriptural text compiled by Charles Jennens from the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. It was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742, and received its London premiere nearly a year later...
HandelHANDELHANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....
's Messiah . This was the first recording of a reconstruction of the work in its first performance, which took place in Dublin in 1742. - March 2008: J.S. Bach's St Matthew Passion. This was the first recording of the (final) 1742 version of St. Matthew Passion. It was ClassicFM Magazine’s Recording of the month in April 2008, and one of Stereophile's "Records 2 Die 4" of the year 2009.
- November 2008: Handel’s Acis and Galatea. This was Gramophone’s Editor’s Choice and Recording of the Month in January 2009.
- 2010: J.S. Bach's Mass in B Minor. This is the first recording to use the new critical edition by Joshua RifkinJoshua RifkinJoshua Rifkin is an American conductor, keyboard player, and musicologist. He is best known by the general public for having played a central role in the ragtime revival in the 1970s with the three albums he recorded of Scott Joplin's works for Nonesuch Records, and to classical musicians for his...
, which follows Bach's final version of the score from 1748-50 exclusively from beginning to end. (Other editions have included elements from a 1733 version of the Kyrie and Gloria, and some posthumous changes by Bach's son, C.P.E. Bach).