Photos 1, 3, 5 & 6: Jonathan Slade
Photos 4, 7 & 8: Cathy Pyle
Patrick John Jones writes music for acoustic instruments that is most often performed in concert halls and occasionally in museums, art galleries, and libraries. He is interested in vivid sounds, visceral rhythmic energy, and different ways of approaching the idea of narrative. The influences on his work span from the very old to the very new, and extend beyond music into Bauhaus art, Old English, science fiction, natural phenomena, illuminated Medieval manuscripts, and concrete poetry.
Patrick works with a variety of ensembles, both conventional and unusual. The Vanity of Small Differences, for example, takes the familiar combination of violin and cello and reinterprets the relationship between the two. The piano concerto Cast distributes three groups of instruments around an auditorium in order to create an immersive musical space. He has also composed for amateur choir (Prayer), spoken word poetry (Three Shringi Kumari Poems), and holds as yet unrealised ambitions to branch into electronics.
Performances by:
Britten Sinfonia, Ensemble 10/10, members of the Philharmonia Orchestra, Quatuor Diotima, Mahan Esfahani, The Kreutzer Quartet, Octandre, Psappha, the Berkeley Ensemble, Ulysses Ensemble, and more…
Venues, festivals, broadcasts:
BBC Radio 3, Aldeburgh Festival 2018 (Britten Studio, Snape), Royal Festival Hall (London), Wigmore Hall (London), Milton Court (London), Foundling Museum (London), Epstein Theatre (Liverpool), National Centre for Early Music (York), Capstone Theatre (Liverpool), Burgess Foundation (Manchester), and more…
Awards, courses, residencies:
Dartington Advanced Composition Course 2019
– mentored by Harrison Birtwistle; funded with a bursary from the RVW Trust
Cheltenham Composers Summer School 2019
PRS Accelerate 2018
Britten-Pears Composition Course 2017
– tutored by Colin Matthews, Michael Gandolfi, and Oliver Knussen
Royal Philharmonic Composition Prize 2015
– mentored by Unsuk Chin
Residency at Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada, 2015
– funded by the Sir Jack Lyons Charitable Trust
Britten Sinfonia OPUS2014
Sound & Music New Voices 2014
New Dots 2013
Sound & Music Portfolio 2013
Academic positions and education:
Artist in Residence, John Rylands Archive, Manchester 2019-2020
Postdoctoral fellow, University of York, 2018-2019
PhD in Composition, University of York, 2013-2018
– supervised by Thomas Simaku and funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council
MMus in Composition, Kings College London, 2011-2012
BA Music, University of York, 2007-2010
Reviews:
Santoor Suite
‘Nach der Pause folgt sehr modern das erst im vergangenen Jahr vom jungen englischen Komponisten Patrick John Jones eigens für Bindewald und ihr Cembalo umgeschriebene Stuck ‘Santoor Suite’. Hier entfuhrt die Musikerin einerseits in die Heimat der Santoor, des trapezformigen Seiteninstuments Irans, Pakistans und Kaschmirs, andererseits verbinden sich dabei dustere und dramatische Momente derart phanomenal, dass man sich zu der Frage hinreissen lasst: Hort sich so das Nirwana an?‘
Oliver Steinke, Die Rheinpfalz, September 2017
Locks of the Approaching Storm
‘Tentative gestures involving flutter-tonguing on flute and clarinet – a sound once banished as a cliché but which here sounded remarkably fresh – built tension slowly. In the foreground all seemed swirling movement; in the background were subtly varied chordal patterns, surging like the sea’s swell. Once again, abstract process joined hands with the evocation of natural process’
Ivan Hewitt, Philharmonia Blog, June 2016
Uncanny Vale
‘In such lofty company it would have been easy for the work of a young composer to be overshadowed, but Jones is clearly far too able and imaginative a composer to allow that to happen. Described as a descent in to and out of a bizarre musical ‘landscape’, the piece suggested certain affinities with the music of Harrison Birtwistle in its juxtaposition of musical blocks. However the comparison was not unflattering, as both the materials and the form were assured and compelling.’
James Moriarty, Bachtrack, December 2014
‘Spectacular Jones, Graceful Nielsen…the lunchtime concert really came to life with the OPUS2014 winner, Patrick John Jones’s Uncanny Vale, a new work for wind quintet, which explored harmonic and timbral possibilities in a pioneering way. Creating a strange, eerie atmosphere, the work was altogether more expressive than Berkeley or Seeger, and really captured the audience’s imagination, exploring ideas of fantasy and the mind.’
Carl Wikeley (Britten Sinfonia Student 2014-15), Britten Sinfonia Blog, December 2014
Unfurl
‘The other new piece on the bill, Unfurl, by Patrick John Jones, was more arresting, with an acerbic clarinet seeping across a bed of strings like a dark stain’
Alfred Hickling, The Guardian, March 2014
Uhtceare
‘dramatically assured’
Steve Crowther, York Press, May 2014
