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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/

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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, and 2014-2017 was Director of the Universty's Graduate School.

His recent compositions include a multichannel audio installation Sun Deck Set Cogitation based on the poetry of Simon Perril, premiered in full in 2023 at the Phoenix Cinema and Arts Centre, Leicester and Tremolo (2024) for viola, bass clarinet, piano and electroacoustic sounds, and SoundPlay (2021) for piano and electroacoustic sounds. A new compact disc Esapces lointains was published in 2024 by emprientes DIGITALes (Montréal), including Le Chant en dehors (2022) originally set in an 18-channel immersive audio dome format,  Arioso (2021), Filaments and Phases (2023) and Sweet Anticipation (2018).  In 2015 John premiered the 60-minute Red Sky, for alto flute, bass/B-flat clarinet, piano and 14-channel electroacoustic sounds (Carla Rees, alto flute; Heather Roche, clarinets; Xenia Pestova-Bennett, piano) framing recorded oral histories of twenty men's and womens's experience of World War One. Two further works based on oral histories of war experience Once He Was a Gunner and An Angel at Mons were published in 2024 on Histoires de soldats by emprientes DIGITALes.
John's most recent article is 'Scaling Form', in Musica/Tecnologia 24 (Florence University Press, 2024). 

Research group affiliations

Music, Technology and Innovation Research Centre

Publications and outputs

  • Histoires de Soldats
    dc.title: Histoires de Soldats dc.contributor.author: Young, John dc.description.abstract: This high definition downloadable album contains two works: An Angel At Mons (2014), dur. 11:23 (stereo reduction from 15.1 channel original). Once He Was a Gunner (2020), dur. 56:35, in 26 sections (stereo work). [Prelude, Sora Valley, The Canadian Club, First civilians, Faenza, Flashback: El Alamein memory, Villanova, The truck, The shrapnel, Balsorano, What was his name, now?, The brickworks, Dov'è la Nuova Zelanda?, What the heck was his name, now?, The wrong way, Do you remember in Faenza?, Friendly fire, Senio River—nothing left, An open door, After Cassino , Found in Chicago, The princess, April 1945, Trieste, Stretto, Returning.]
  • Histoires de Soldats
    dc.title: Histoires de Soldats dc.contributor.author: Young, John dc.description.abstract: This compact disc contains two works: An Angel At Mons (2014), dur. 11:23 (stereo reduction from 15.1 channel original). Once He was a Gunner (2020), dur. 56:35, in 26 sections (stereo work). [Prelude, Sora Valley, The Canadian Club, First civilians, Faenza, Flashback: El Alamein memory, Villanova, The truck, The shrapnel, Balsorano, What was his name, now?, The brickworks, Dov'è la Nuova Zelanda?, What the heck was his name, now?, The wrong way, Do you remember in Faenza?, Friendly fire, Senio River—nothing left, An open door, After Cassino , Found in Chicago, The princess, April 1945, Trieste, Stretto, Returning.] Programme notes and purchase information at https://electrocd.com/en/album/6579-histoires-de-soldats dc.description: The oral history material used in An Angel at Mons provided with the kind permission of BBC Northern Ireland.
  • Scaling Form
    dc.title: Scaling Form dc.contributor.author: Young, John dc.description.abstract: This paper examines the question of formal scale in acousmatic music, aiming to identify ways in which relationships between a composer’s materials shape or determine the duration of the final form. Successful short and long forms in music are traditionally regarded as encapsulating a sense of completeness with notions such as narrative, development, departure and return as informing principles—the nature of which may influence formal scale. Yet, as with many contemporary music practices, acousmatic music may not always be read in terms of such established teleological models. The digital tools we find at the heart of acousmatic music make it possible to fabricate large quantities of new sounds very quickly, with signal processing and synthesis routines capable of giving composers unanticipated sonic outputs, setting up challenges for sorting, sifting and valorising materials with a view to formal design. That given, in order to locate some formal mechanisms, attention is given to ways in which materials are initially shaped and presented in a work, using the metaphor of ‘formed and ‘forming’ spaces. Through analysis of selected acousmatic pieces the idea of the ‘design impression’ is used to show through how salient levels of musical form can be identified and that comparable readings of acousmatic forms can be made across different formal scales. dc.description: open access article
  • Espaces Lointains
    dc.title: Espaces Lointains dc.contributor.author: Young, John dc.description.abstract: This compact disc contains six acousmatic compositions: Sweet Anticipation (2018 rev 2021), dur: 17:26 (stereo reduction from 16-channel original) Arioso (2021), dur: 9:38 (stereo work). Hidden Spaces (2019), dur: 9:46 (stereo work, in three movements: Räfstad, Montréal, Dobbiaco). Filaments and Phases (2022-23), dur: 11:37 (stereo reduction from 8-channel original). Three Spaces in Mid-Air (2017), dur: 10:56 (stereo work, in three untitled movements). Le Chant en Dehors (2021-22) , dur: 10:08 (stereo reduction from 18 channel 'dome' format original). Programme notes and purchase information at https://electrocd.com/en/album/6578-espaces-lointains
  • Espaces Lointains
    dc.title: Espaces Lointains dc.contributor.author: Young, John dc.description.abstract: This downloadable album contains six acousmatic compositions: Sweet Anticipation (2018 rev 2021), dur: 17:26 (stereo reduction from 16-channel original) Arioso (2021), dur: 9:38 (stereo work). Hidden Spaces (2019), dur: 9:46 (stereo work, in three movements: Räfstad, Montréal, Dobbiaco). Filaments and Phases (2022-23), dur: 11:37 (stereo reduction from 8-channel original). Three Spaces in Mid-Air (2017), dur: 10:56 (stereo work, in three untitled movements). Le Chant en Dehors (2021-22) , dur: 10:08 (stereo reduction from 18 channel 'dome' format original). Programme notes and purchase information at https://electrocd.com/en/album/6578-espaces-lointains
  • 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.

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 (Cantuar.)

Courses taught

Music, Technology and Innovation BA (Hons)

Music, Technology and Performance BA (Hons)

  • MTEC3004 Making and Performing Music 3
  • MTEC3001 Final Project

Honours and awards

2022 First Prize, Prix Francis-Dhomont—Jury prize, Festival AKOUSMA Montréal (Le Chant en dehors).

2022 Audience Prize (ex aequo) Concurso de Composición Electroacústica Destellos, Mar del Plata, Argentina (Arioso).

2021 First Prize (instrumental section) Musica Nova, Composition Competition, Prague (SoundPlay).

2020 First Prize, (acousmatic section) Musica Nova Composition Competition, Prague (Abwesenheit).

2019 First Prize Klang! International Competition, Monpellier, France (Three Spaces in Mid-Air).

2019 First Prize (instrumental section) Musica Nova, Prague (Magnetic Resonance).

2015 Recipient of Klingler Electroacoustic Residency, Bowling Green State University, Ohio.

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

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

Philharmonia Community Board (Leicester) 2023-present

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

Board Member, Sonic Arts Network (2022-05)

Projects

Forthcoming events

24 August 2025 Concert Bruit de la neige 'Cosmos respiration' Annency.

Conference attendance

2024 The Long and the Short of Acousmatic Forms. Paper presented at the 2024 Noisefloor Conference, Lisbon.

2020 Listening Back and Shaping Form. Keynote address, Audio Testimonies Symposium, Bournemouth University/University of the Arts, London.

2017 Partial Objects: Acousmatic Spectralism.  Paper presented at the Spectralisms Conference, University of Oxford/IRCAM.

2016 Oral History as Form. Paper presented at the 2016 New York Electroacoustic Music Festival.

2013 Beginnings and Endings. Paper presented at the Electroacoustic Music Studies Conference, Lisbon.

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:

  • Eddie Clijsen (Practical Explorations of Formalised Approaches to Microtonal Composition)

Second supervisor

  • Cristiana Palandri (Materialising sound-based composition: exploring
    multi sensory perception and audience engagement  between tactile and sonic spheres)
  • Katie-Jane Howard (Audience Perception of Digital Music Instruments in Live Musical Performance)
  • Sol Andersson (The Act of Listening: Objects and Noise)

Externally funded research grants information

Lieu-temps / Of Time and Place. DVD-A release on empreintes DIGITALES with Ricordiamo Forlì and Arrivederci, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) and Creative New Zealand.

Red Sky (2015) for alto flute, bass/B-flat clarinet, piano and 14-channel electroacoustic sounds. Funded by Arts Council England.

Spectral Domains (2017) for TRIONYS ensemble. Funded by Arts Council England.

John Young