Jonty Harrison

"... the apparent contradiction between music 'on a fixed medium' and flexibility in performance ... is not in reality a contradiction at all because of the very bases of musique concrète: the composer proceeds by drawing out implicit larger structures from the explicit morphologies of individual sound objects. This is an empirical, pragmatic procedure, building on the organic characteristics of the materials being used, in a manner appropriate to the musical unfolding in time. The arbiter of this process is the ear ... If something 'works' or 'sounds right' it needs no further justification in the musical context, as the compositional speculation has been proved experimentally (experientially, perceptually)."

Composer, conductor, and educator, Jonty Harrison is active in the musical life of Britain.

His music has been widely performed, recorded, and broadcast worldwide. Prizes include the Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Awards and Prix Ars Electronica. Commissions have included the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (Paris), Groupe de Musique Expérimentale de Bourges, the International Computer Music Association, MAFILM / Magyar Rádió (Budapest), Ensemble InterContemporain (Paris), and the BBC. For ten years, Harrison created the music for National Theatre productions (London).

Harrison is Senior Lecturer in Composition and Electroacoustic Music at the University at Birmingham (UK).