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JACK BODY
2004 Laureate
Composer
Jack Body's music covers most genres, including solo and chamber music, orchestral music, music-theatre, music for dance and film as well as electro-acoustic music. A fascination with the music and cultures of Asia, particularly Indonesia, has been a strong influence on his music.
Jack Body was born in Te Aroha in 1944 and studied at Auckland University, with further experience in Cologne and at the Institute of Sonology, Utrecht. During 1976-77 he was a guest lecturer at the Akademi Musik Indonesia, Yogyakarta, and since 1980 he has lectured at the School of Music, Victoria University of Wellington, now the NZ School of Music.
Jack has also worked in experimental photography and computer-controlled sound-image installations. As an ethnomusicologist, his published recordings include music from Indonesia and China - a set of four CDs, South of the Clouds, features field recordings of pioneer Chinese researcher Zhang Xingrong.
He has been commissioned by the NZ String Quartet, the NZ Symphony Orchestra, and many other groups, and has written three works for the Kronos Quartet. Jack Body's opera Alley, based on the life of Rewi Alley, was premiered to wide acclaim at the 1998 NZ International Festival of the Arts. In 2003 he was a featured composer at the Other Minds Festival'in San Francisco, and in 2004 he was honoured by a Composer Portrait concert in the NZ International Festival. He has been commissioned by the Atlas Ensemble (resident ensemble in the 2004 Holland Festival), and was a guest of the Encuentros 2004 International Festival in Buenos Aires.
Jack Body has been an energetic promoter of New Zealand music, beginning with the early Sonic Circus in Wellington in the 1960s, up to New Music New Zealand at the Ijsbreker in Amsterdam in 2001. He has been the editor of Waiteata Music Press since 1980, publishing scores of New Zealand music, and has produced over eighteen CDs of music by New Zealand composers.
In 2005 Jack had compositions included in New Music Works at the University of California Santa Cruz Arboretum collaborative programme of events performed on what has been declared New Zealand Day, and had his work Three Transcriptions performed on New Zealand Day at the 2005 World Exposition, Aichi, Japan.
Jack was the Artistic Director of the 2007 Asia Pacific Festival in Wellington, and attended two festivals where his music was performed: a new music festival in Phnom Penh, and at the ACL/ISCM Festival in Hong Kong. Also in 2007, Jack was the first composer to collaborate with The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, The Film Commission, Park Road Post Production and Radio New Zealand to produce a one film score each year. Jack’s work is heard in Vincent Ward's film Rain of the Children.
More recently Jack's The House where I Live was premiered by pianist Stephen de Pledge in his Landscapes programme in the 2008 NZ International Festival. In April 2008 Jack has been working in the studios of the Visby International Centre for Composers, in May he will be a guest composer at the Beijing Modern Festival in China, and in June he will be featured composer at the Cincinnati '08 festival of new music.
Jack Body became an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZSM) in the 2001 New Year's Honours list in acknowledgement of his services to music and photography
Visit Jack's website
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