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First name: Gavin
Last name: Bryars
Dates: 1943
Category: Quartet
Nationality: British
Opus name: Longplayer
Publisher:
Peculiarities: https://britishmusiccollection.org.uk/searchpage#adv-search-form-anchor
Information: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Richard Gavin Bryars (born 16 January 1943) is an English composer and double bassist. He has worked in jazz, free improvisation, minimalism, historicism, experimental music, avant-garde, and neoclassicism. Born in Goole, in East Yorkshire, England, Bryars studied philosophy at Sheffield University but became a jazz bassist during his three years as a philosophy student. The first musical work for which he is remembered was his role as bassist in the trio Joseph Holbrooke, alongside guitarist Derek Bailey and drummer Tony Oxley. The trio began by playing relatively traditional jazz before moving into free improvisation. Bryars became dissatisfied with this when he saw a young bassist (later revealed to be Johnny Dyani) play in a manner which seemed to him to be artificial, and he became interested in composition instead. Bryars was a founding member of the Portsmouth Sinfonia, an orchestra whose membership consisted of performers who "embrace the full range of musical competence" — and who played popular classical works. Its members included Brian Eno, whose Obscure Records label would subsequently release works by Bryars. In one of the label's first three releases, Eno's album Discreet Music, Bryars conducted and co-arranged Three Variations on the Canon in D Major by Johann Pachelbel, which constitutes the second half of the album. Bryars's later works have included A Man In A Room, Gambling (1992), which was written on commission from Artangel. Bryars's music is heard beneath monologues spoken by the Spanish artist Juan Muñoz, who talks about methods of cheating at card games. The ten short works were played on Radio 3 without any introductory announcements, and Bryars has said that he hoped they would appear to the listener in a similar way to the shipping forecast, both mysterious and accepted without question. His cello concerto Farewell to Philosophy was recorded in 1996 by Julian Lloyd Webber. Bryars's When Harry Met Addie (a tribute to jazz singer Adelaide Hall and saxophonist Harry Carney) was premiered at the Duke Ellington Memorial Concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London on 1 May 1999. The piece was performed by the London Sinfonietta Big Band[4] and commissioned by the baritone saxophonist/bass clarinettist John Surman. Cristina Zavalloni sang the soprano and the London Sinfonietta Big Band was conducted by Diego Masson· Bryars founded the music department at Leicester Polytechnic (now De Montfort University), and was Professor of Music there for several years. He left in 1994 to concentrate on composition and performance. He lives in England, and, for part of the year, on the west coast of Canada. He was born on the same day (16 January 1943) as another prominent English composer, Brian Ferneyhough. Since 1974 Bryars has been a member of the Collège de 'Pataphysique and was elected Regent in 2001. In 2015 he was named Transcendent Satrap, the highest honour in the Collège, a position he shares with Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Eugène Ionesco, Umberto