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"I grew up surrounded both by 'classical' music with my piano studies, and 'pop/rock' music swirling from the radio. Much of my composition work aims to draw these two disparate influences together. As a child, they seemed totally different worlds, but I see now that there is much in common."

In 2024, John wrote a Bassoon Trio, "This Is Not The End", suggested by Joanne Angus, professional bassoonist. It's light in mood, but heavy on rock-style riffs, jazzy rhythms, and classical methods of music development, and will be performed in 2025.

Also in 2024, John won a Composer award from the Shanghai International Puppet Festival, for his 45-min soundtrack for Dreamer and the Rainbow Tiger, completed in 2022 and revised in 2023. It's his second international award; there was a similar one in 2017. More info below.

And again in 2024, 3 movements of 7 Rejoinders for Sax Trio were performed by members of the Ocean Saxophone Quartet. This was a rearrangement of the work for Clarinet Trio first performed in 2017.

Early in 2025, John completed a work for the forthcoming Antoni Grzyb album (see below), and a two-part electro-acoustic sound-art work for the Melbourne Composers' League 'Acousmatic Exchange Concert'. Joint concerts will be held in Italy and Australia.

An album of piano-based music, Give Me A Mask, was released in 2020, under the name Antoni Grzyb, John's 'neo-classical' pseudonym, released on streaming services, bandcamp, and on CD. Tracks from this album were performed by him regularly at Melbourne's Royal Exhibition Building vaccination hub during the 2021 lockdowns, providing both a musical outlet for the composer at this difficult time, and some solace to public and staff in the hall. They've also been performed at several concerts in St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne, and at private functions.

In 2022 and 2023, John completed another 40-minute soundtrack for Dream Puppets, a touring company headed by Richard Hart in Melbourne. There is no dialogue in the show, so the only sounds heard are those John created in his studio. Starting with a backyard nature soundscape, it utilises a huge range of music styles to suit the changing actions of the performance. Influences of 'world' music, electronic dance music, classic movie soundtracks and game music can be heard. This is the fifth 40-minute project for Dream Puppets he has created, spanning over 20 years, with performances throughout Australia and at many international puppetry festivals. Two of them are award-winners for both puppeteers and composer.

Some other performances and works:

Notes From The Borigove was composed for the Astra Choir (dir. John McCaughey) and first performed by them in December 2016. In March 2017, Australian Voices (dir. Gordon Hamilton) performed the central movement in Brisbane, and also did a studio recording. In December 2019, the Astra Choir revisited the work again at an Abbotsford Convent concert.

3 Soft Segments for solo piano was premiered by Danae Killian 2019.

7 Rejoinders was written for clarinet trio, and first performed at the Melbourne Composers' league East Meets West concert in 2017. It has since been arranged for various ensembles, including double-reed trio and sax trio.

Henso-Kyoko #1, variations for solo flutes, was performed by Peter Sheridan at the Subterranean Sonorities concert for Melbourne Composers League in 2016.

Alighting #1, for 6 flutes of varying sizes, was performed twice by the Monash Flute Ensemble (dir. Peter Sheridan) in 2018.

6 Abbreviations for solo bassoon was performed by Matthew Angus at three Inventi Ensemble concerts in July 2016.

Music can lead to all kinds of unexpected adventures. In John's case:

• He dreamed of playing in progressive rock bands, and performed on the TV show Countdown.

• He studied composition with Ian Bonighton at University of Melbourne Conservatorium.

• He became a session musician, and an advertising music writer, performing, producing or composing hundreds of 'jingles', and found that he likes solving these little 'musical puzzles'.

• He played a Fringe Festival show with free-improvisation ensemble Now! Here! This! where the only performance direction was, "We are frogs in a pond".

• He improvised with Andrew Garton's Terminal Quartet at the Make It Up Club, partly with fingers in ears when the performer next to him kept turning up the volume.

• Fascinated with sonic art and sound design, he composed and designed an installation for Sonic Residues 02, a sound art festival at Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne.

• When George Dreyfus was commissioned by Polyglot Puppets to write music for the Jack Davis play 'Widartji', John was honoured to become his electronic arranger, realising and producing the score in his home studio. They remain friends.

• He conducted synthesizer and music technology training sessions and demonstrations all around Australia and NZ, and throughout Asia, including twice in Tehran.

• He found himself at the home of Roland founder Ikutaro Kakehashi, and in meetings with Korg founder Tsutomu Katoh. He has many friends in the international Korg Product Planning community.

• He performed on the famous Melbourne Town Hall organ.

• He programmed a synthesizer to sound like a pipe organ at Melbourne Town Hall, when the real thing was out of commission.

• He became Musical Director for legendary Australian pop vocalists Colleen Hewett, Johnny Young, Brian Cadd, Mike Brady, Wendy Stapleton, and other corporate rock acts.

• He travelled from his Melbourne base to Christchurch, Cairns, Broome, Abu Dhabi and many more places, just to do single short performances.

• He immersed himself in notation software and found years of arranging work for Channel 9's Carols By Candlelight and other live-to-air broadcasts, and for Hugh Jackman, Jerry Lewis, and hundreds more clients.

• He became a long-time volunteer for the music industry charity Support Act.

John Arthur Grant — current to January 2025