Professor John Young

Job: Professor of Composition

Faculty: Computing, Engineering and Media

School/department: Leicester Media School

Research group(s): Music, Technology and Innovation Research Centre (MTIRC)

Address: De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester, UK, LE1 9BH

T: +44 (0)116 207 8220

E: jyoung@dmu.ac.uk

W: http://www.electrocd.com/en/bio/young_jo/discog/

 

Personal profile

John Young is a composer working in the field of electroacoustic music.  His output includes works for multi-channel loudspeaker environments, music for instruments and electroacoustic sounds and electroacoustic documentary conceived for radio. 

John‘s music explores the use of sound recording as a creative tool, which he uses to bring sounds from natural environments into the studio where he transforms and refashions them with digital audio tools.  This involves merging sound-images of the real world with more abstract sonic materials, creating elaborate designs that challenge traditional notions of musical materials and form but also invite the listener to enter imaginative worlds where familiar objects and environments are given new meanings.

John received his PhD in musicology from the University of Canterbury in 1990, and in the same year was appointed Lecturer in Music at the Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand) where he was also Director of the Electroacoustic Music Studios 1995-2000.  He joined DMU in 2000 and from 2009-12 served as Head of Research for the Faculty of Humanities.

His recent work includes a 16-channel composition commissioned by the Groupe de recherches musicales for the Radio France cycle of electroacoustic music performances, given in the Salle Olivier Messiaen in Paris, an audiovisual work created with photographer Lala Meredith-Vula extending from his 2009 work Lamentations, commissioned by the Institut International de Musique Electroacoustique de Bourges, and a piece for piano and electroacoustic sounds for Xenia Pestova.  His work is published principally by the Montréal Empreintes Digitales label, with whom he has released two solo discs: La Limite du Bruit (2002) and Lieu-Temps (2007). 

Publications and outputs

  • Filaments and Phases
    dc.title: Filaments and Phases dc.contributor.author: Young, John; Perril, S. D. dc.description.abstract: 'Filaments and Phases' is a setting of a section of Simon Perril's poem 'Sun Deck Set Cogitation'. Perril's poem is derived from two texts by Claude Lévi-Strauss (description of a sunset written in 1935 while en route from Marseilles to Brazil and another written on the 1941 voyage on which he escaped occupied France) through a process of textual erasure in which new text is created by selective scanning of an initial one. Perril's recorded reading of 'Deck One' from 'Sun Deck Set Cogitation' is subject to a similar treatment in 'concrete' sonic form, perforated and reconstituted within an immersive framework of digitally synthesised and processed sound forms. 'Filaments and Phases' was first performed at the Electroacoustic Spring 2023 Festival in Rethymno, Crete.
  • Sun Deck Set Cogitation (audio installation: Historic Dockyard Chatham version)
    dc.title: Sun Deck Set Cogitation (audio installation: Historic Dockyard Chatham version) dc.contributor.author: Young, John; Perril, S. D. dc.description.abstract: Sun Deck Set Cogitation is a setting of the first set (‘deck one’) of Simon Perril’s poem of the same name which is derived from the contents of two texts by anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss—a highly detailed and densely descriptive moment by moment account of a sunset written in 1935 while en route from Marseilles to Brazil and another written on the 1941 voyage on which he escaped occupied France. Furthermore, Perril’s compositional approach takes impetus from an epiphany Lévi-Strauss had early in his career looking at the formal intricacy and structural play of dandelion seed heads that give rise to other forms. Perril’s poetic ‘treatment’ of the source texts scatter and recombine word-seeds in surprising combinations: blowing on a seed-head and spreading palimpsestic filaments. This process is further reflected in Young’s acousmatic ‘treatment’ of Perril’s reading, extracting and processing vocal fragments and working these into a new palimpsest of textual material and digital sound design. The Historic Dockyard Chatham version of this work was created as a prototype for the final Phoenix Leicester version [https://hdl.handle.net/2086/22848] It consists of a single variation on Perril’s reading of 'deck one' realised spatially on the Game of Life 192-loudspeaker wave field synthesis system in the A+E Lab Central Boiler House Chatham Historic Dockyard Chatham, as part of the University of Kent‘s ‘Sonic Cartography: soundscape, simulation and re-enactment’ conference, 28-30 October 2022. dc.description: The Historic Dockyard Chatham version of this work was created as a prototype for the final Phoenix Leicester version [https://hdl.handle.net/2086/22848].
  • Sun Deck Set Cogitation (audio installation: Leicester Phoenix version)
    dc.title: Sun Deck Set Cogitation (audio installation: Leicester Phoenix version) dc.contributor.author: Young, John; Perril, S. D. dc.description.abstract: 'Sun Deck Set Cogitation' is an acousmatic installation setting of the first set (‘deck one’) of Simon Perril’s poem of the same name. The poem is derived from the contents of two texts by anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss—a highly detailed and densely descriptive moment-by-moment account of a sunset written in 1935 while en route from Marseilles to Brazil and another written on the 1941 voyage on which he escaped occupied France. Furthermore, Perril’s compositional approach takes impetus from an epiphany Lévi-Strauss had early in his career looking at the formal intricacy and structural play of dandelion seed heads that give rise to other forms. Perril’s poetic ‘treatment’ of the source texts scatter and recombine word-seeds in surprising combinations: blowing on a seed-head and spreading palimpsestic filaments. This process is further reflected in Young’s acousmatic ‘treatment’ of Perril’s reading, extracting and processing vocal fragments and working these into a palimpsestic sound design. Perril’s text conveys many absurd, surreal images and his reading projects a degree of tension as though his evocations are searching to reach a definitive expression of an indescribable scene. This inherently expressive but unresolved narrative influenced the way the sound installation was created. The recorded reading of the text was pared down to a skeletal outline consisting only of consonants and breath sounds. 16 variations were created, all precisely the same length of 5 minutes 42 seconds—a duration determined by the original reading and functioning as a ‘ground’ for the variations. The rhythmic framework provided by the consonants is continuously present, though not always apparent, and provided points of initiation and connection for materials woven around it, submerging it in layers of found environmental and domestic sounds and digitally synthesised sonorities, including digital processing of the voice. Recognisably complete fragments of Perril’s text are also retained and precisely aligned to their cognate points in the stream of consonants—ie they remain precisely synchronised to their original locations in the reading, forming a palimpsest of text and processed sounds. By imposing this additional erasure process, new aphoristic micro-texts are produced which, through the continuous persona evoked by the presence of the voice, can be read as commentary on, and conversation with, the enveloping soundscape. The 16 variations are continuously cycled in random order as long as the installation remains open. A looped video projection of a seascape in four horizontal layers is placed centrally in the installation space. This subtly varying visual stimulus offers a point of focus in the installation experience, though the sound field itself is designed to be heard from any orientation. As an audio installation, a key consideration in this work was the problem of creating a form suitable for a transient audience. This was addressed by balancing micro and macro formal considerations. The 16 variations collectively make a 92-minute cycle with each variation constructed over the same ground as determined by the duration and phrasing of the original recording. Each variation has a distinct character, but many have sonic/textual elements in common, evoking macro-form arches and connections perceptible within the randomised order of variations to create the effect of a long range narrative and encourage sustained listening. Simultaneously, the structure of each variation is composed in fixed form such that, musically, micro-narratives in spectromorphological evolution, spatial trajectories, and fleeting connections between verbal and nonverbal sound can be grasped as meaningful even in a brief engagement with the installation.
  • What I Didn't Know I Knew ... (soundscape)
    dc.title: What I Didn't Know I Knew ... (soundscape) dc.contributor.author: Young, John dc.description.abstract: This 24-minute soundscape was created to blend with Lala Meredith-Vula's solo exhibition ‘What I didn’t know I knew ...’ (2023) on show at the Gallery of the Ministry of Culture in Prishtina, Kosova, 6 April – 6 June 2023, curated by Edi Muka. ‘What I didn’t know I knew ...’ consists of the sculptural installation and a digitally projected continuous flow of images taken from the many different human and cultural themes contained within Meredith-Vula’s significant body of photographic work. The video stream was created by Jim Boulton and the sculptural installation consists of a haystack reflecting one of the striking themes in Meredith-Vula’s photography. This soundscape provides a connecting naturalistic sound world for the exhibition and was diffused via a loudspeaker array through the gallery space.
  • Le Chant en Dehors
    dc.title: Le Chant en Dehors dc.contributor.author: Young, John dc.description.abstract: 'Le Chant en dehors' creates an atmosphere of evolving connection between sonorities of definite and indefinite pitch, or ‘tone’ and ‘noise’. The title is taken from an instruction used by the French composer Francis Poulenc—meaning ‘bring out the tune’. That idea is reflected in this work as strands of pitch, as resonance or attack morphologies, coalesce to imply states of linear or spectral connectedness as emergent melodic or harmonic strands. The spatial setting of the work exploits ways in which noise-based material tends to be more active within the three-dimensional frame than focally pitched/resonant sounds. In the work these contrasting types of sonority are placed in changing patterns of interaction to evoke waves of tension and release. The work is realised in a 16.2 channel (8-6-2.2) 'dome' spatial audio format. 'Le Chant en dehors' was premiered at the KLANG! Festival in the Salle Molière – Opéra Comédie, Montepellier, France, on 4 June 2022. In October 2022 it was awarded the first prize—the Prix Francis-Dhomont—at the 2022 Akousma Festival in Montréal, Canada, with a performance in the The Music Multimedia Room at McGill University, Montréal on 14 October 2022. dc.description: The work is realised in a 16.2 channel (8-6-2.2) 'dome' spatial audio format. 'Le Chant en dehors' was premiered at the KLANG! Festival in the Salle Molière – Opéra Comédie, Montepellier, France, on 4 June 2022. In October 2022 it was awarded the first prize—the Prix Francis-Dhomont—at the 2022 Akousma Festival in Montréal, Canada, with a performance in the The Music Multimedia Room at McGill University, Montréal on 14 October 2022.
  • Partial Objects: A perspective of Spectralism.
    dc.title: Partial Objects: A perspective of Spectralism. dc.contributor.author: Young, John dc.description.abstract: Acousmatic music has brought us face-to-face with the idea that the internal structure of sound can be a source of compositional ideas. This resonantes strongly with Spectralist conceptions of musical form (viz. Grisey’s call to ‘no longer compose with notes, but with sounds’). But where Spectralist instrumental music often involves translations of a spectromorphological structure, acousmatic music deals in the moment-by-moment reality of the sonic object itself. Two musical consequences of this are identified: the bypassing of micro-interval approximations necessitated in much Spectralist instrumental music and the capacity to progressively unravel a sound to create new ‘partial’ objects. dc.description: Visiones Sonoras 17 was an online conference. This paper was presented in online video format.
  • SoundPlay
    dc.title: SoundPlay dc.contributor.author: Young, John dc.description.abstract: SoundPlay explores qualities of tuning by placing the grand piano in dialogue with samples derived from a dilapidated upright piano. As sonic objects these samples have properties unique to that one particular instrument and represent a kind of 'found' tuning—that is to say they possess idiosyncratic and waywardly non-linear spectral characteristics, resulting from neglect and physical damage to the instrument, arising naturally and serendipitously over time. Many of the individual ‘notes’ sampled extend beyond distorted intonation and into noisy or bell-like sonorities. By bringing these together with sounds of the fixed, equal tempered tuning of the 'true' piano the work aims to set up tensions and resolutions through inherent discrepancies in temperament and timbre. Some are subtle in quality with closely aligned pitch while detailed digital manipulation of the spectral content of the samples allowed the creation of more spectrally fused elaboration of the piano timbre—implying moments in which we might be hearing a ‘meta-instrument’. At some points the distance between the piano and electroacoustic sound world is emphasised with noisy outbursts, but they also converge with zones of spectral fusion and near-fusion in sequences of harmonic resolution and through synchronised gestural action. The interval of the octave features in much of the piano writing as a means to stress moments of harmonic resolution and also to anchor gestural coruscation around flavours of stable pitch. At another level—which impacted significantly on the way material was developed and shaped in the compositional process—SoundPlay builds on the notion of what it means to be ‘fixed’ in sonorous terms: the consistently structured tuning of the ‘live’ piano integrated with often fragile, uniquely shaped sampled sound forms. dc.description: SoundPlay was commissioned by the Sidén-Hedman Duo (Stockholm), and premiered in PACE Studio 1, De Montfort University, Leicester by Eva Sidén on 16 November, 2021. The work consists of piano score and 119 stereo audio sound files, cued in a MAX patch by the pianist.
  • Arioso
    dc.title: Arioso dc.contributor.author: Young, John dc.description.abstract: Arioso (2021) develops a musical form from the instantaneous aural analysis of a natural 'soundscape’ experience. The formative event was a humid September night in Tappan Square in Oberlin, Ohio where a chorus of crickets and the constant electronic beep of pedestrian crossing signals formed an interlocking texture of distinct pitch and pulsing granular noise. My field recording of this unlikely duet between the purity of an artificial pulsing tone and the spatially rich stridulation of insects underpins the structure of the piece. A flock of jackdaws circling in flight near my home just after dawn provides another window on the world of natural sound, supporting the work’s emphatic rhythmic shapes. While the form might be loosely thought of as reflecting the traditional recitative-like ‘arioso’, the title (arioso = ‘airy’) is also intended to be more deeply indicative of the atmosphere of sensual mystery I found with the air set in vibrant motion that night in Oberlin. Arioso was premiered at St. Ruprechtskirche, Vienna, 13 June 2021, diffused by Thomas Gorbach.
  • To The Red Sky
    dc.title: To The Red Sky dc.contributor.author: Young, John dc.description.abstract: Sir Thomas Armstrong, a former principal of the Royal Academy of Music and a veteran of the First World War, once stated that there is a falsity about the reporting of all battle scenes. In the face of the most shatteringly etched images of war in works such as Wilfred Owen’s Dulce et decorum est what hope might we then have of truly identifying with the experience of those subjected to battle? The stories you will hear in To the Red Sky are extracted from oral history recordings held by the Imperial War Museums. With Sir Thomas’s sentiment in mind, the idea behind the work is not so much to use sound (especially electroacoustic sound) to paint a graphic picture of the First World War, but to create an experience bringing us closer to empathy with the sentiments of these very articulate and reflective veterans of war—seeking a kind of mosaic of collective memory. I have drawn together reflections around a broad range of themes, expressed in ways that do not attempt to justify the war’s means or glorify the outcome, but to gather stories conveying images, events and feelings that have remained with these men and women … some perhaps told many times, some perhaps drawn out of deep memory in the moment. That these were recorded late in the lives of the subjects is important. Distillation in time gives a quality of concentration and gravitas to their reflections. In some cases they are poetic and in some cynical, with a burning and ardently outspoken frankness— but all very real. This quality of directness must be taken particularly seriously in the elderly: when these oral histories were taken, time was running out for them and the vividness of their memory gives us an urgent message—still—to listen. Their evocation of the past remains with us as very something immediate, very human … disturbing and uplifting in equal measure. To the Red Sky is an adaptation of Red Sky (2014-15) for alto flute, clarinets, piano and electroacoustic sounds, created with the support of Arts Council England and Leicester City Council for the Leicester New Walk Museum’s Leicester Remembers the Great War exhibition, April 2015, performed by Carla Rees, Heather Roche and Xenia Pestova. The oral history recordings are reproduced with the permission of the Imperial War Museums.
  • Listening Back and Shaping Form
    dc.title: Listening Back and Shaping Form dc.contributor.author: Young, John dc.description.abstract: This paper discusses the use of recorded audio testimonies as agents of meaning through electroacoustic music. The paper departs from the notion that sound recording is a significant act in itself, and that a recorded voice is capable of projecting more about the speaker and their emotions than the words alone. In working creatively with oral history recordings a core question from the artist's perspective is proposed: what is the recording doing and what goes on inside me when I listen back? Four compositions by the author using a range of oral history types as testimonies on the experience of war are discussed: Ricordiamo Forlì, To the Red Sky, An Angel at Mons and Once He Was a Gunner. The paper reflects on the process of transforming war testimony into an aestheticised framework—the construction of an overarching form, the sensitivities and contextual understandings required, and the capacity to embed vocal sound within the virtual soundscapes of acousmatic composition. This version of the paper is expanded from a keynote presentation given for the Audio Testimonies Symposium, jointly hosted by Bournemouth University and the University of the Arts London, July 2-3 2020.

 

Click here for a full listing of John Young's publications and outputs.

Key research outputs

John’s extended radiophonic work Ricordiamo Forlì was awarded the Euphonie d’Or in 2010 by the Institut International de Musique Electroacoustique de Bourges, France.  The work relates the story of his soldier father and civilian mother meeting in Forlì, Italy in 1944 during the 8th Army campaign there, using oral histories, war correspondent reports and other recorded sound from the period in conjunction with an extensive array of electroacoustically processed sound to convey the narrative and emotional significance of the events.  The work gained a first prize in the Institute’s open competition in 2007, one of the world’s most significant forums for electroacoustic music.  Euphonies d’Or awards have been made on two past occasions and are selected from the works previously awarded prizes in the competition.  35 in total have been awarded over the years, representing one work for each year of the competition’s history, which, in the words of the IMEB, “represent particularly brilliant moments in the history of electroacoustic music.”

Research interests/expertise

  • Composition (electroacoustic and instrumental/vocal) particularly ‘acousmatic’ electroacoustic works focusing on recorded environmental sound sources and digital signal processing
  • Construction of narrative in music
  • Spectral composition
  • Use of historical sound sources in electroacoustic music
  • Multi-channel approaches to electroacoustic composition
  • Analytical approaches to electroacoustic composition, especially the role of source recognition and the relationship between realistic sound-imagery and spectromorphological transformation
  • Form in electroacoustic music.

John welcomes postgraduate and research students with interests in any of the above areas.

Areas of teaching

Composition (electroacoustic, instrumental and vocal); orchestration; acoustics for musicianship; history and analysis of 20th and 21st century music.

Qualifications

MusB(Hons), PhD (Cant.)

Courses taught

Music, Technology and Innovation BA (Hons)

Music, Technology and Performance BA (Hons)

  • MUST1001 Foundations of Music—acoustics and psychoacoustics for musicianship
  • MUST3026 Composing with Dance—a year long project in creating music for a dance company (in conjunction with the Dance Department)
  • MUST3000/3024—supervision of final year dissertations and practical projects

Honours and awards

2011 Honorary Mention, Musica Nova 2011, Prague (X)

2010 (with Lala Meredith-Vula) nominated for best short film at DokuFest International Film Festival, Kosova, in 2010 (Are You Everybody?)

2010 Euphonie d’Or, Bourges International Competition (Ricordiamo Forlì)

2010 Special Mention, Metamorphose 2010 Competition, Brussels (Lamentations)

2007 First prize, 34th Concours Internationaux de Musique et d’Art Sonore Electroacoustiques, Bourges (Ricordiamo Forlì)

2005 Finalist, 32nd Concours Internationaux de Musique et d’Art Sonore Electroacoustiques, Bourges (Trace)

2003 Third Prize ‘Pierre Schaeffer’ Electronic Music Composition Competition, Pescara, Italy (Sju)

2001 Second Prize Concurso Internacional de Música Eletroacústica de São Paulo (Liquid Sky)

2001 Finalist, ARTS XXI competition, Valencia, Spain (Sju)

2000 Pre-selected (two works), Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition, France (Liquid Sky and Allting Runt Omkring)

1997 Special Mention, Prix Noroit, Arras, France (Virtual)

1997 Honorary Mention, Prix Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria (Virtual)

1997 Pre-selected, Bourges International Electroacoustic Music competition, France (Virtual)

1996 First prize, Stockholm Electronic Arts Award, Sweden (Inner).

Membership of external committees

Peer Review College, Arts and Humanities Research Council (2009-12)

 

Forthcoming events

Guest composer, MANTIS Electroacoustic Festival 2012, 27 October 2012, University of Manchester http://mantisfestival.com/

Research seminar and concert, University of Edinburgh, 9 February 2013.

Conference attendance

2011 Thinking in Sound: Sounding the Imagination. Institute of Musical Research, DREAM Symposium: Technology and Musical Thought, University of London.

2010 Playing with Space: Inside and Outside Sound. Keynote address, New Zealand Electroacoustic Symposium, University of Auckland.

2009 Narrative, Rhetoric and the Personal: Storytelling in Acousmatic Music.  Paper presented at the 2009 Electroacoustic Music Studies Conference, Buenos Aires.

2007 Electroacoustic Musicianship: Sounds in Search of Music? Paper presented at the Digital Resources in the Humanities and Arts Conference, Dartington College.

2007 A Practice-based Approach to Using Acoustics and Technology in Musicianship Training.  With Picinali, L and Moraitis, D. Proceedings of the 2007 International Computer Music Conference, Copenhagen: International Computer Music Association: 61-64.

2007 Issues of Form in Electroacoustic Music. Paper presented at Electroacoustic Music Studies Network Conference, Leicester.

2006 Sound Design and Sonic Imagery. Sound Art and Creative Technology:  One-day Conference on Electroacoustic Music. London Metropolitan University.

2006 Figures and Forms: Acousmatic thought in an interactive age.  Ai-maako Festival, Santiago de Chile.

2005 Sound, Sign and Sense. Paper presented at Sonimágenes, Buenos Aires

2005 Ear and Eye. Keynote lecture, Sonimágenes, Buenos Aires

2005 Sound In Structure: Applying Spectromorphological Concepts. Paper presented at Electroacoustic Music Studies Network Conference, Montréal, http://www.ems-network.org/spip.php?article147

2004 Sound Morphology and the Articulation of Structure in Electroacoustic Music. Résonances conference, IRCAM, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 2003.

Current research students

First supervisor:

  • Panos Amelidis (Non-linear Storytelling as Strategy for Electroacoustic Composition).
  • Louise Rossiter (Expectation in Electroacoustic Music) (AHRC-funded project).
John Young