John Pickard

Composer John Pickard has written music in conventional forms, including symphony, string quartet, and tone poem, but he does not fit neatly into the neo-Romantic camp or any other one for that matter. His music is dense, highly expressive, extended in tonality but not atonal, and brilliantly orchestrated. Pickard was born in Burnley, Lancashire, in northwest England, on September 11, 1963. He showed enthusiasm not just for music but for actual composition as a child. Pickard attended the University of Wales, studying composition with William Mathias. A formative experience, clearly audible in his music, was a year studying at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, Netherlands, with Louis Andriessen after winning a scholarship from the Dutch Ministry of Culture. Back at the University of Wales, Pickard received his PhD in 1989 and went on to a composition teaching post at the University of Bristol. He is the conductor of the University of Bristol Symphony Orchestra, and he has also been active as a musicologist, serving as general editor of a complete edition of the music of Edward Elgar. Pickard's orchestral music has been commissioned and premiered by high-profile organizations in Britain. His five symphonies have earned multiple performances, and the Symphony No. 2 had its premiere at the hands of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra in 1989. The Flight of Icarus (1991) was also a BBC commission and was performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and later at the Proms and by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in 2006. Pickard has written four critically acclaimed string quartets, and he has been identified with brass band music: his Symphony No. 4 ("Gaia") was written for brass band and percussion, and in 2005, he gained exceptionally wide exposure as the composer of the test piece for the National Brass Band Championship, held at London's Royal Albert Hall. Several of Pickard's works have been recorded for the BIS label; a 2017 release on BIS included the Symphony No. 5, the tone poem Sixteen Sunrises, and a set of Concertante Variations. In 2022, Pickard's Mass for Troubled Times was recorded by the BBC Singers under conductor Martyn Brabbins and released the following year on BIS. ~ James Manheim, Rovi