John Pickard BMus PhD (Wales)

Professor of Composition and Applied Musicology
Director: CHOMBEC (Centre for the History of Music in Britain, the Empire and the Commonwealth)

Look up John in the University contacts directory

John Pickard was born in 1963 and started to compose at an early age. He read for his B.Mus. degree at the University of Wales, Bangor, where his composition teacher was William Mathias. Between 1984 and 1985 he studied with Louis Andriessen at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, Netherlands on a Dutch Ministry of Culture Scholarship. He was awarded a PhD in composition in 1989 and has worked at the University of Bristol since 1993.

John Pickard is best known for his orchestral and chamber music. He has written four symphonies (No. 2 premièred by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra in 1989; No. 3, a BBC commission for BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Mark Wigglesworth, premièred in 1997), and other orchestral works of symphonic dimensions: Sea-Change (1989), The Flight of Icarus (1990), Channel Firing (1992-93), the Trombone Concerto: The Spindle of Necessity (1997-98) and the Piano Concerto, premièred in Dresden in 2000, The Flight of Icarus (a BBC commission), received its first performance in 1991 by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, was repeated by them at the 1996 BBC Proms and has since been played many times, both in Britain and abroad. In January 2006 it received its US première by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and in 2010 will be played by the Cinicinatti Symphony Orchestra

Recent major works include the large-scale oratorio Agamemnon’s Tomb (2005-07), commissioned by the Huddersfield Choral Society, and premièred by them in 2008, and the hour-long Gaia Symphony (1991-2003) for brass band, first heard in its complete version at the 2005 Cheltenham Music Festival. John Pickard's commitment to the brass band movement was marked in 2001, when he was appointed Composer in Residence to the renowned 'Buy as you View' Cory Band, a position he held until 2004. In 2005 he was commissioned to compose the test piece for the finals of the 2005 National Brass Band Championship, held at the Royal Albert Hall, London in October. This piece, Eden, has since been performed all over the world and is widely acknowledged to be one of the most significant works ever written for brass band.

John Pickard's music has been widely praised for its large-scale architectural sense and bold handling of an extended tonal idiom. In a five-star review of the recent disc of his orchestral music (BIS CD-1578), BBC Music Magazine charcterised his music as ‘grounded in a much-expanded tonality that encompasses a huge and stimulating harmonic spectrum’ and describing him as ‘a born master of the orchestra’. Reviewing the same disc, International Record Review described it as ‘music that immediately engages the attention and, above all, amply rewards repeated listening’ 

John’s four string quartets (1991, 1993, 1994, 1998), have received particular acclaim. Reviewing the première of the Fourth Quartet in June 1998, The Strad called it 'one of the best pieces of British chamber music to be heard for years' while the January 2003 edition of Tempo, reviewing the Sorrel Quartet's CD of Quartets 2, 3 & 4 (Dutton Epoch CDLX 71117), said 'even if Pickard were never to write another quartet in his life, his place among the greats is secure'.

In addition to his compositional activities, John is General Editor of the Elgar Complete Edition.

John Pickard's music is published by Bardic Edition.

For a complete list of works by John Pickard, see his personal website