JOHN LELY / JOHN WHITE
With a shared interest in systems music and the writing constraints of Oulipian literature, composers and performers John Lely and John White present cheap chamber music of electronic and other means. LelyWhite's previous performances have included Battling Loopstations!!, settings of the poems of Patience Strong for vocoder and drum machine, and house band for the Pataphysical New Year.
John Lely studied at Goldsmiths College, London with Roger Redgate and John Tilbury, and privately with Michael Parsons. Performs in various groups including Apartment House and the ever-populous 9!. Alongside composers Tim Parkinson and Markus Trunk he co-curates the annual Music We'd Like to Hear concert series. From 2007-8 he was responsible for the digitisation of the Daphne Oram Collection at Goldsmiths College, and is currently working on "Words and Music", an AHRC funded research project about text scores at Bath Spa University. He also teaches a course in experimental sound at Chelsea College of Arts. Hobbies include letterboxing and velology.
John White, born in Berlin in 1936, studied at the Royal College of Music. In the 1960s and 1970s he was closely associated with, and influenced by, English experimental composers Cornelius Cardew, Howard Skempton and Gavin Bryars. His compositions include 4 Operas, 21 Symphonies, 30 dance works, c. 165 Piano Sonatas, and hundreds of pieces for ensembles he has initiated (including Promenade Theatre Orchestra, Instant Dismissal Symphony Orchestra, Live Batts!! and Garden Furniture Music Ensemble). He has written the longest piece for cello and tuba (Guinness Book of Musical Facts and Feats). In private he prefers the music of Tchaikovsky, Busoni and Einsturzende Neubauten.