John White is an English

English people

The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 and musical performer.

Life

White trained and taught at the London Royal College of Music

Royal College of Music

The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...

. He is a skilled pianist and tuba

Tuba

The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...

 player and has written extensively for both instruments.

In the 1960s and 1970s he was closely associated with, and influenced by, English experimental composers such as Cornelius Cardew

Cornelius Cardew

Cornelius Cardew was an English experimental music composer, and founder of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected the avant-garde in favour of a politically motivated "people's liberation music".-Biography:Cardew was born in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire...

, Howard Skempton

Howard Skempton

Howard Skempton is a British composer and accordionist. Since the late 1960s, when he helped organize the Scratch Orchestra, he has been associated with the English school of experimental music...

 and Gavin Bryars

Gavin Bryars

Richard Gavin Bryars is an English composer and double bassist. He has been active in, or has produced works in, a variety of styles of music, including jazz, free improvisation, minimalism, historicism, experimental music, avant-garde and neoclassicism.-Early life and career:Born in Goole, East...

. His pupils have included Roger Smalley

Roger Smalley

Roger Smalley AM is a British-Australian composer, pianist and conductor. Professor Smalley is currently a Senior Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia in Perth and Honorary Research Associate at the University of Sydney.-Biography:Smalley was born in Swinton, Lancashire,...

, Brian Dennis and William York.

White invented the early British form of minimalism known as Systems music

Systems music

Systems music is a term which has been used to describe the work of composers who concern themselves primarily with sound continuums which evolve gradually, often over very long periods of time . Historically, the American minimalists Steve Reich, La Monte Young and Philip Glass are considered the...

, with his early Machines. His association with younger composers, including Christopher Hobbs

Christopher Hobbs

Christopher Hobbs is an English experimental composer, best known as a pioneer of British Systems music.-Life and career:...

, Dave Smith

Dave Smith (composer)

Dave Smith is an English experimental composer and musical performer. After attending Solihull School, he read music at Magdalene College, Cambridge. In the 1970s, Smith was a member of the Scratch Orchestra and a performer/composer in ensembles with John Lewis, Michael Parsons, Howard Skempton,...

, Benedict Mason

Benedict Mason

Benedict Mason, born on 23 February 1954, is a British composer.Mason was educated at King's College Cambridge and took a degree in film-making at the Royal College of Art . He did not turn to composition until his early 30s, but his first acknowledged work, Hinterstoisser Traverse , attracted...

, and John Lely has led to many British ensembles, including the Promenade Theatre Orchestra

Promenade Theatre Orchestra

Promenade Theatre Orchestra was an English quartet founded by John White in 1969 and consisted of the composer/performers White, Christopher Hobbs, Alec Hill, and Hugh Shrapnel...

, Hobbs-White Duo, Garden Furniture Music, the Farewell Symphony Orchestra and other groups.

Works

As at May 2008, White has written 164 piano sonata

Piano sonata

A piano sonata is a sonata written for a solo piano. Piano sonatas are usually written in three or four movements, although some piano sonatas have been written with a single movement , two movements , five or even more movements...

s, 21 symphonies

Symphony

A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...

, 30 ballet

Ballet

Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...

s, and much incidental music

Incidental music

Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....

 for the stage, all in a highly eclectic style (or, more accurately, range of styles). His stage music includes commissions by the Royal Shakespeare Company

Royal Shakespeare Company

The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...

 and the Royal National Theatre

Royal National Theatre

The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...

. Amongst those influencing his music he acknowledges Erik Satie

Erik Satie

Éric Alfred Leslie Satie was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde...

, Charles Valentin Alkan, Szymanowski

Karol Szymanowski

Karol Maciej Szymanowski was a Polish composer and pianist.-Life:Szymanowski was born into a wealthy land-owning Polish gentry family in Tymoszówka, then in the Russian Empire, now in Cherkasy Oblast, Ukraine. He studied music privately with his father before going to Gustav Neuhaus'...

, Busoni

Ferruccio Busoni

Ferruccio Busoni was an Italian composer, pianist, editor, writer, piano and composition teacher, and conductor.-Biography:...

 and Medtner

Nikolai Medtner

Nikolai Karlovich Medtner was a Russian composer and pianist.A younger contemporary of Sergei Rachmaninoff and Alexander Scriabin, he wrote a substantial number of compositions, all of which include the piano...

. His recent projects include a set of song cycle

Song cycle

A song cycle is a group of songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a single entity. As a rule, all of the songs are by the same composer and often use words from the same poet or lyricist. Unification can be achieved by a narrative or a persona common to the songs, or even, as in Schumann's...

s, one of which consists of settings of friends' addresses.

External links

• White's Piano sonata no. 95, played by Jonathan Powell
  Jonathan Powell (musician)
  Jonathan Powell is a British pianist and composer. He was a student of Denis Matthews and Sulamita Aronovsky. He made his performing debut at the age of 20 in the Purcell Room in London....
  
   at the 'Indian Summer in Levoca
  Levoca
  Levoča is a town in the Spiš region of eastern Slovakia with a population of 14,600. The town has a historic center with a well preserved town wall, a Renaissance church with the highest wooden altar in Europe, carved by Master Paul of Levoča, and many other Renaissance buildings.On 28 June 2009,...
  
  ' festival, 2008.