Gavin Bryars, prominent and prolific English composer, was born in Yorkshire in 1943. He initially established his musical reputation as a jazz bassist working in the early sixties with improvisers Derek Bailey and Tony Oxley. He abandoned improvisation in 1966 and worked for a time in the United States with John Cage. Subsequently he collaborated closely with composers such as Cornelius Cardew and John White. From 1969 to 1978 he taught in departments of Fine Art in Portsmouth and Leicester, and was instrumental in founding the legendary Portsmouth Sinfonia. He founded the music department at Leicester Polytechnic (later De Montfort University) and was professor of music there from 1986 to 1994.
His first major works as a composer were
The Sinking of the Titanic (1969) originally released on Brian Eno's Obscure label in 1975 and
Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet (1971).
Bryars’ unaccompanied choral work,
And so ended Kant’s travelling in this world (1997), draws its text from an early Romantic biography of the most noted philosopher of the (secular) Enlightenment. This is not a story of flamboyant genius: at the end of a famously boring life (it was said that the citizens of Königsberg, where Kant lived his entire quiet life, actually did set their clocks according to his daily constitutional), Kant appears as a tired, bewildered old man, who, as Bryars tells it, endured a last “futile and inconclusive” journey across town to call unsuccessfully on an old friend before retiring to his rooms for good. Bryars sets Thomas De Quincey’s offhand, conversational account of this non-event with extreme simplicity: he eschews counterpoint, follows the speech rhythms of the text faithfully, and works his way methodically through the tale with no repetitions for dramatic effect. This iron restraint allows for a final masterstroke: the title phrase, the last phrase of the text, is repeated three times, first in hushed unison, then with increasing tonal complexity, until, turning back to invoke “this world” one last time, the choir gently lays Immanuel Kant down to rest.
Among Bryars' other works are three string quartets and numerous commissions, including orchestral commissions for the Bournemouth Sinfonietta (
The Green Ray, 1991), BBC Symphony Orchestra (
The War in Heaven, 1993), and the Primavera Chamber Orchestra (
The Porazzi Fragment, 1999,
Violin Concerto, 2000). Bryars’ vocal works include a
Third Book of Madrigals (2003-5) written for Red Byrd,
Eight Irish Madrigals (2004) and
Nine Irish Madrigals (2006-7).
He has written three full-length operas;
Medea (1984),
Doctor Ox's Experiment (1998), and
"G" (2002). Since 2006 he has collaborated with Opera North Projects, initially with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) on Shakespeare sonnets
Nothing like the Sun (2007) and subsequently on
Mercy and Grand (2007-8). He has also composed prolifically for theater and dance. His successful recent collaboration with Merce Cunningham,
Biped, is now in the Cunningham Company's repertoire and is playing world-wide. Numerous visual artists have also used Bryars’ work.
Bryars' has made numerous recordings, and in 2000 he started his own label, GB Records. The Gavin Bryars Ensemble, founded in 1981, regularly tours internationally.
Gavin Bryars is Associate Research Fellow at Dartington College of Arts, UK. Gavin Bryars is married to Russian-born film director Anna Tchernakova, has three daughters (two from a previous marriage) and a son. He lives in England and British Columbia, Canada.
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