“… The music of Gavin Bryars falls under no category. It is mongrel, full of sensuality and wit and is deeply moving. He is one of the few composers who can put slapstick and primal emotion alongside each other. He allows you to witness new wonders in the sounds around you by approaching them from a completely new angle. With a third ear maybe. . .” –Michael Ondaatje
“…Listen to him, he’s intelligent…” Lulu
“…One of the ten most intelligent people on the planet…” Juan Muñoz
Gavin Bryars was born in Yorkshire in 1943. His first musical reputation was 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 during the time that he taught at Portsmouth College of Art he 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 (for information on Joseph Holbrooke,see the folloowing: Joseph Holbrooke in rehearsal 1965, Joseph Holbrooke ’98, and Derek Bailey (The Guardian, December 31). Some of Gavin’s most significant early works which are not published by Schott but can be found elsewhere (they are mentioned in Michael Nyman’s ‘Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond’ and recorded on Obscure. EMC was founded by Christopher Hobbs in 1969. Gavin Bryars ran the EMC from 1972 until it closed its operations in 1981, shortly after the death of Cornelius Cardew.)
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