Gavin Bryars

Gavin Bryars was born in Yorkshire in 1943. His first musical reputation was as a jazz bassist working in the early sixties with improvisers Derek Bailey and Tony Oxley. He abandoned improvisation in 1966 and worked for a time in the United States with John Cage. Subsequently he collaborated closely with composers such as Cornelius Cardew and John White. From 1969 to 1978 he taught in departments of Fine Art in Portsmouth and Leicester, and during the time that he taught at Portsmouth College of Art he was instrumental in founding the legendary Portsmouth Sinfonia. He founded the music department at Leicester Polytechnic (later De Montfort University) and was professor of music there from 1986 to 1994.

His first major work as a composer was The Sinking of the Titanic (1969) originally released on Brian Eno’s Obscure label in 1975 and Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet (1971), both famously released in new versions in the 1990s on Point Music label, selling over a quarter of a million copies. The original 1970s recordings have been re-released on CD by GB Records (BCGBCD22 and 23)

Bryars has composed prolifically for the theatre and dance as well as for the concert hall and has written five full-length operas. His first opera, Medea was first staged by the director Robert Wilson at the Opéra de Lyon and Opéra de Paris in 1984. Following the success of the original production, a revised version was given in concert in 1995 by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. His second opera, Doctor Ox’s Experiment (based on a story by Jules Vernes and with a libretto by Blake Morrison) was staged by the Canadian film director Atom Egoyan for English National Opera in 1998. A separate production of Doctor Ox’s Experiment appeared in 1999 in Dortmund, Germany. The third opera, “G” (libretto again by Blake Morrison), was commissioned by Mainz Opera and was premiered in February 2002, staged by Georges Delnon, in the newly refurbished Mainz Opera House.

His fourth opera, a chamber opera called Marilyn Forever based on Marilyn Monroe, with libretto by Canadian writer Marilyn Bowering, was first performed in Victoria BC directed by Joel Ivany and featuring the Faroese singer Eivør Palsdottir in September 2013. There have been subsequent performances at the Adelaide Festival (February-March 2015) as well as a different production in March 2015 with Long Beach Opera, California, directed by Andreas Mitisek. There have since been productions by the Vienna Volksoper (2019), the Contemporary Opera Society of Oxford University (2019), Saarland Opera, Germany (2020) and the Royal Scottish Conservatoire (2022). His fifth opera is a chamber opera based on Michael Ondaatje’s The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, directed by Jean Lacornerie in Lyon for the Theatre de la Croix-Rousse and the Theatre de la Renaissance premiered in 2018.

Full biography on gavinbryars.com