John Woolrich

John Woolrich (Cirencester, 1954) is an English composer whose work is distinguished by its deliberate use of borrowed material, from pieces by Mozart and Monteverdi to references to Wagner and Nono. He first studied English literature at the University of Manchester and then composition with Cowie at the University of Lancaster. His career combines composing with teaching and musical administration.

After his studies, he held the Northern Arts composer post at the University of Durham from 1982 to 1985. He then became composer in residence at the National Centre for Orchestral Studies in London (1985-1986) and, from 1994 to 1998, lecturer in music at Royal Holloway, University of London. He also taught at the GSM and at the Dartington International Summer School. His commissions include two for the BBC Proms, in 1996 and 1998, and his music has been programmed at British festivals such as those in Aldeburgh, Bath and Cheltenham. Together with the soprano Mary Wiegold, he founded the Composers Ensemble, through which he gained a reputation as a promoter, admired for the originality of his commissions and programmes.

His compositional approach rests on responses to visual and literary stimuli, which are reflected both in his procedures and in the titles of his pieces. Rather than developing a motif organically, he builds his discourse through non-organic procedures that generate a succession of varied musical perspectives. He draws on materials from very different traditions and places them in new contexts, ranging from simple allusion to explicit quotation. Other recurring themes include folklore and myth, the commedia dell'arte, as in Harlequinade, and nocturnal imagery, as in It is Midnight, Dr Schweitzer, whose title derives from a construction by the Swiss sculptor Jean Tinguely.

His legacy is associated with a style of writing that combines the mechanics of juxtaposed and repeated fragments, heir to influences such as Stravinsky, Berio, Birtwistle and Janáček, with heterophonic textures organised around a cantus firmus melody. In his later concertos for viola and oboe, the melody gains in immediate expressiveness and loses some of its impersonality.