Gavin Bryars
| Gavin Bryars | |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Richard Gavin Bryars |
| Born | 16 January 1943 |
| Origin | Yorkshire, England |
| Occupation(s) | Composer |
| Instruments | Double bass |
| Website | gavinbryars |
Richard Gavin Bryars (/ˈɡævɪn braɪərz/; born 16 January 1943) is an English composer and double bassist. He has been active in, or has produced works in, a variety of styles of music, including jazz, free improvisation, minimalism, historicism, experimental music, avant-garde and neoclassicism.
Born in Goole, in East Yorkshire, England, Bryars studied philosophy at Sheffield University but became a jazz bassist during his three years as a philosophy student.
The first musical work for which he is remembered was his role as bassist in the trio Joseph Holbrooke, alongside guitarist Derek Bailey and drummer Tony Oxley. The trio began by playing relatively traditional jazz before moving into free improvisation. However, Bryars became dissatisfied with this when he saw a young bassist (later revealed to be Johnny Dyani) play in a manner which seemed to him to be artificial, and he became interested in composition instead.
Bryars's first works as a composer owe much to the New York School of John Cage (with whom he briefly studied), Morton Feldman, Earle Brown and minimalism. One of his earliest pieces, The Sinking of the Titanic (1969), is an indeterminist work which allows the performers to take a number of sound sources related to the sinking of the RMS Titanic and make them into a piece of music. The first recording of this piece appeared on Brian Eno's Obscure Records in 1975. The 1994 recording of this piece was remixed by Aphex Twin as Raising the Titanic (later collected on the 26 Mixes for Cash album). In 2012, the centenary year of the Titanic's sinking, he made a new extended version , with film projections by Bill Morrison and Laurie Olinder, the included his four children as a low-string ensemble (viola, 2 cellos, bass) and turntablist Philip Jeck, subsequently released on GB records (BCGBCD21)
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