John Spence : Represented Artist
|
|
Random Audio Sample: Ylang ylang : for clarinet and piano by John Spence, from the CD Piano and ... |
Photo: Lucy Crighton
Artist website: http://www.johnspence.net.au
John Spence played the piano intuitively from an early age. By the age of nine, he began to develop his own compositions and continued throughout his school life. He studied composition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, graduating in 1989. His teachers included Graham Hair, Martin Wesley Smith and Richard Vella. He also studied electronic music with Greg Schiemer. In 2011 he completed a research master's degree in creative arts with a focus on electroacoustic music. Throughout his career, he has composed many chamber and orchestral works with performances and recordings by some of Australia's leading musicians including Michael Kieran Harvey, Kathryn Selby and Mark Walton.
Spence's music is most often lyrically expressive but is often rhythmically irregular and acutely modal. He has developed his style from a wide spectrum of modal influences including medieval and renaissance modalism, jazz modalism and a diverse collection of iconic tonalists and atonalists from the 20th centrury.
Some of Spence's career highlights include his 2005 commission to compose an orchestral piece for the 200th anniversary of Hans Christian Andersen called the Money Box. In 2013, the BlueScope Youth Orchestra premiered one of his orchestral works in Venice at the venerated church of San Stae (Saint Eustachio) as part of their tour of Northern Italy. In 2014 Spence was awarded an Australia Council grant to compose a piece for the Anzac 100-year commemoration. The 23-minute solo piano piece was performed by Spence on Anzac Day 2015. He gave several performances as part of a regional tour of NSW. In February 2017 Spence completed an original soundtrack for the feature film Rip Tide starring Debby Ryan.
In 2020 he was commissioned to write a string quartet as a memorial to those who perished in the Australian bushfires of 2019/20. The work was named Dark Fire and was performed by members of the Steel City Strings in July of 2020. He currently teaches theory and composition at the Wollongong Conservatorium of Music.
John Spence — current to August 2025
Selected Commissions
| Work | Commission Details | |
|---|---|---|
|
String Quartet No. 4 : Dark Fire (2020) | Commissioned by Steel City Strings. |
|
|
Flight from Dungannon Castle : for Bassoon and Piano (2019) | Commissioned by and dedicated to Hayden Burge. |
|
|
Shallow River : for violin and piano (2019) | Commissioned by Alisha Dunstan |
|
|
Tosto : for viola and piano (2017) | Commissioned by Mia Whitehall |
|
|
Changes I II & III : for double bass and guitar (2015) | Commissioned by Adrian Whitehall |
| Between the Peace Lines : Piano Trio No. 1 (2012) | Commissioned by Wollongong Conservatorium of Music for performance by TRIOZ. |