Born in 1939, Jonathan Harvey was a chorister at St Michael’s College, Tenbury (1948-52) and later a major music scholar at St John’s College, Cambridge. He gained doctorates and also studied privately (on the advice of Benjamin Britten) with Erwin Stein and Hans Keller, thus gaining an early acquaintance with the school of Schoenberg. Whilst a Harkness Fellow at Princeton (1969-70) he was brought into contact, albeit briefly, with Milton Babbitt.

An invitation from Boulez to work at IRCAM in the early 1980s has resulted in eight realisations at the Institute, or for its associated Ensemble Intercontemporain, including the widely praised tape piece Mortuos Plango Vivos Voco, Bhakti for instrumental ensemble and tape, Ritual Melodies for computer-manipulated sounds, Advaya for cello and live and pre-recorded sounds and Mythic Figures. Harvey has also composed for most other genres: orchestra (Madonna of Winter and Spring, Cello, Percussion, Tuba and Piano Concertos, Timepieces, Tranquil Abiding and White as Jasmine), chamber (three String Quartets, Song Offerings, Tendril, Lotuses, Scena, Soleil Noir/Chitra, Wheel of Emptiness, and Death of Light, Light of Death, for instance) as well as works for solo instruments. He has produced a large and varied output of choral works, including the large cantata with electronics Mothers shall not Cry (2000).

Harvey’s opera Inquest of Love, commissioned by the English National Opera was premiered at the Coliseum in June 1993, and repeated at Theatre de la Monnaie, Brussels in January 1994. It was widely praised for its sophisticated and effective use of electronic sounds and their blending with a conventional orchestra and was acclaimed as the outstanding achievement amongst recent ENO opera commissions.

Harvey now attracts commissions from a host of international organisations. His music has been extensively played and toured by, amongst others, the Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Nouvelle Ensemble Moderne of Montreal, Ictus Ensemble of Brussels and Sinfonia 21. About 50 recordings are available on CD’s. He is regularly performed at all the major international contemporary music festivals, and has a reputation as one of the most skilled and imaginative composers working in electronic music. He is a Member of Academia Europaea, and in 1993 was awarded the prestigious Britten Award for composition. He published two books in 1999, on inspiration and spirituality respectively, and Arnold Whittall’s study of his music also appeared, published by Faber & Faber (and in French by IRCAM) in the same year. John Palmer’s analytical study ‘Jonathan Harvey’s Bhakti’ was published by the Edwin Mellen Press in 2001.

He was featured in the Aldeburgh Festival in June 2002 with 8 works; and 23 of his works were performed in MUSICA, the Strasbourg Festival, in September 2002.


more info:www.vivosvoco.com