Professor John Butt
- Gardiner Professor of Music (Music)
telephone:
01413304571
email:
John.Butt@glasgow.ac.uk
R306 Level 3, Music, 14 University Gardens, Glasgow G12 8QH
Biography
I arrived in Glasgow in 2001 to take up the post of Gardiner Professor in Music, having previously taught at the University of Cambridge, UC Berkeley and the University of Aberdeen. I have always been a performer and musicologist, and the two areas sometimes complement one another directly, but sometimes they go in quite different directions. As a musician, I am an organist and harpsichordist but am now most active as a conductor in both orchestral and choral fields (I am musical director of Edinburgh’s Dunedin Consort, but also work with larger orchestras such as the Hallé orchestra, BBC Symphony orchestras in London and Wales, Rotterdam Philharmonic etc.). As a musicologist, my career began in Bach studies and historical performance practice, but my work has spread in several directions, such as early modern music, modernity, music and film and ideologies of classical music.
I have published five monographs with Cambridge University Press (on Bach, early modern music education, modernity, and the culture of historical performance), and many associated journal and book articles. As a performer I have recorded some 25 CDs, including 14 with Dunedin Consort (covering Bach’s major choral works, Handel oratorios, and works by Mozart and Monteverdi).
Research interests
Much of my performance work has related to performing works in their original contexts (e.g. liturgical and coffeehouse performance), or recreating elements of the earliest performances. I am also very interested in listening and audience practices, and endeavour to integrate these issues into some live and recorded performances. The performance research also crosses over with other aspects of my academic work, such as the cultures of classical music and the ideology of musical works within modernity (and the relationship between such cultures and religion). I am currently working on music and film, particularly the ways in which Alfred Hitchcock used music as a way of conceiving of films, specifically in the relationships between ‘absolute music’ and ‘pure cinema’.
Grants
- 2005 Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship for a two-year study of Bach’s Passions (2006-2008)
- CI on the Bass Culture project, 2013-16, AHRC
- PI on the EAERN project (Eighteenth Century Arts Educaiton Research Network), 2016-18, Royal Society of Edinburgh
Supervision
I have supervised in a variety of fields from 16th-18th century but have also been closely involved with projects in 19th and 20th centuries and contemporary music culture (including music and film). So a broad range of proposals are welcome!
- Gates, Samuel
William Shakespeare, Robert Johnson and The Tempest: A Nexus of Change for Song on the Shakespearean Stage. - Ritchie, Andrea
A Musical Model for the MCU: Investigating Representation and Identity in Phases One to Three of Marvel's Cinematic Universe Films
I have supervised projects in a variety of fields, including late Renaissance theories of music and the world, seventeenth-century keyboard cultures and fantasy, the emergence of early modern musical works, music and other arts of performance, Bach studies, Mozart studies, musical education in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, twentieth century performance culture.
Teaching
- Historiography and Criticism
- Notation and Performance Practice
- Bach and the Lutheran Passion
- Chamber Music
- Film Music
- Dissertation
- Musicianship
- MMus Musicology
- MMus Historically informed performance
Additional information
Engagement
Performing career, especially as conductor, covering Scotland, UK, much of Europe, Far East, US and Canada. Part of regular series in Scottish venues and Wigmore Hall.
Media
- Two concerts at London BBC Proms (one televised)
- Regular broadcast concerts from Edinburgh Festival and other festivals in UK and Europe
- Many interviews, broadcasts and presentations of BBC Radio 3 and 4
Awards
- OBE, FBA, FRSE, member of Academia Europaea
- Winner of two Gramophone Awards (and several nominations); Nomination for Grammy Award
- Royal Academy of Music/Kohn Foundation Bach Prize
- Medal of the Royal College of Organists
Other
- Principal Artist, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
- Director of Krakow’s Easter Festival Misteria Paschalia 2018
MMus Convenor
HIPP Convenor
Other Publications
2015
Bach’s Magnificat and Cantata 63 – Dunedin Consort (CD – Linn Records)
Bach’s Violin and Harpsichord Sonatas (with Lucy Russell0 – (CD – Linn Records)
2014
Bach’s Well-tempered Clavier, harpsichord (CD – Linn Records)
Mozart Requiem, Dunedin Consort (CD Linn Records)
2013
Bach Brandenburg Concertos, Dunedin Consort (CD Linn Records)
Reviews and Notes
- Over forty reviews of books and music for Country Life, Early Music, Early Music History, Journal of the American Musicological Society, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, Music and Letters, Music Library Association NOTES, Musical Times, The New Republic, Piano and Keyboard, The Times Literary Supplement, Early Keyboard Journal
- Numerous CD reviews for Gramophone, Early Music, Early Music Review
- Author of extended Guardian article on Bach, for the BBC Radio 3 Bach marathon, December 2005
- Sleeve notes and concert programme notes for Academy of Ancient Music, Aldeburgh Festival, Berkeley Festival, Britten Sinfonia, Carmel Bach Festival, Edinburgh Festival, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra (London), Andras Schiff's 2000 Bach series, Monteverdi Choir, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Angela Hewitt’s 2009 recording of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier
External Responsibilities
- Commissioning editor (with Laurence Dreyfus) for the series Cambridge Studies in the Performance and Reception of Music (formerly, Cambridge Musical Texts and Monographs) 1994 -
- Editorial Board of The Journal of the American Musicological Society, 1999 - 2003
- Advisory Board of Eighteenth-Century Music, 2003 -
- Advisory Board of The Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 2003 - 2006
- Council Member, Royal Musical Association, 2004 - 7
- Advisory Board of CHARM (Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music), 2004 - 8
- Member of AHRC Peer Review College, 2004 - 7
- Member of RAE 2008, Sub-Panel 67, 2005 - 8
- Member of The American Musicological Society - Annual Conference Programme committee, 2005
- Member of Advisory Council for Institute of Musical Research (University of London), 2006 -
- British Academy awards in music, 2007-
- Editorial Board, Understanding Bach, 2005-
- Editorial Board, Scottish Music Review, 2007- (editor of first issue)
- Appointed to the Council of the Arts and Humanities Research Council, 2010
Broadcasting
- Numerous lectures and interviews for the BBC (relayed from San Francisco 1994-7, from London, Cambridge or Glasgow 1997-) - including 3 short papers on the history of western music ('The Unfinished Symphony'), 31 December 1999, contributions to the Sunday Bach programmes, 2000, and contribution to 'The English Cadence' (2002)); several interviews on Radio 3’s ‘In Tune’, 'The Choir' and on Radio Scotland
- Performances include:
- Recital from the organ in the Schosskirche, Altenburg, Germany (including interview with Joshua Rifkin, 2000)
- Concert of organ concertos and sonatas by Handel and Mozart (with EnsemblePtarmigan) from Glasgow University Chapel (2003)
Recordings
- Recordings as Conductor
- Chorus Director of UC Chamber Chorus in recordings by Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, conducted by Nicholas McGegan, Handel’s Theodora and Judas Maccabaeus with Harmonia Mundi, 1992-95
- Gibbons, anthems, with UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus, Centaur, conductor and solo organ, 1997
- Handel’s Messiah (Dublin version, 1742), Dunedin Consort and Players, Linn Records, CKD285 (November, 2006)
- Bach’s Matthew Passion (Bach’s final performing version c. 1742), Dunedin Consort and Players, Linn Records, CKD313 (March, 2008)
- Handel’s Acis and Galatea (first, Cannons, version 1718), Dunedin Consort and Players, Linn Records, CKD319 (November, 2008)
- Bach’s B Minor Mass (Rifkin edition of final version), Dunedin Consort and Players, Linn Records, CKD354 (May, 2010)
- Solo Recordings (Organ and Harpsichord; most involving substantial scholarly preparation)
- Pachelbel - Hexachordum Apollinis; two chaconnes; organ - Harmonia Mundi France, 1990
- Bach - Trio sonatas for organ - Harmonia Mundi France, 1992
- Cabanilles - Organ music - Harmonia Mundi France, 1992
- Solo harpsichord (with violinist Elizabeth Blumenstock) in Bach's complete harpsichord/violin sonatas (2 CDs), Harmonia Mundi France, 1993
- Kuhnau - solo harpsichord sonatas, Frische Clavier Früchte, Harmonia Mundi France, 1993
- Purcell - Complete Organ Music and Works by Locke and Blow, Harmonia Mundi France, 1994
- Kuhnau, Biblische Historien, played on organ, clavichord and harpsichord, Harmonia Mundi France, 1995
- Frescobaldi, Capricci, Harmonia Mundi France, 1996
- Recital, 2 July 1995 at St. Machar's Cathedral, Aberdeen (Bach, Liszt, Brahms, Dupré and Messiaen), released by University of Aberdeen on CD, 1997
- Telemann, Fantasies for Harpsichord (on instruments in the Russell Collection, Edinburgh), Harmonia Mundi France, 1999
- J.S. Bach - Four Toccatas and Fugues; Schübler Chorales - (Recorded on the Organ of Trinity College, Cambridge) Harmonia Mundi France, 2000
- Edward Elgar - Complete Organ Music, (Recorded on the Organ of King's College Cambridge), Harmonia Mundi France, 2002
- Organs of Glasgow (with John Kitchen), Delphian (2004)
- Recordings as Keyboard Soloist, Continuo etc
- Re-released recordings, originally from 1980-2:
- EMI, Duruflé, Fauré Requiems (King’s College Choir/Ledger); solo organ parts
- ASV, Gibbons church music (King’s College Choir/Ledger); organ solos
- Session Producer for American Bach Soloists recording of Bach’s Mass in B Minor, conducted by Jeffrey Thomas, Koch International
- Harpsichord 1, in Bach’s concerto for four harpsichords, with American Bach Soloists, Jeffrey Thomas, Koch International
- Harpsichord solo, in Bach’s Brandenburg concerto V, with American Bach Soloists, Jeffrey Thomas (recorded 1995, to be released 2007)
- 1989-1997 - About 15 recordings playing harpsichord and organ continuo, mainly with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and American Bach Soloists
- Re-released recordings, originally from 1980-2:
Fellowships, Awards, Honours
- 1983 Finalist in the London Lloyd-Webber Memorial Organ Competition
- 1984 Finalist in the Leipzig Bach Organ Competition
- 1992 W. H. Scheide Award from the American Bach Society for book, Bach Interpretation (Cambridge, 1990)
- 1995 Honorary member of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute, Ohio
- 2003 Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
- 2003 Book, Playing with History, shortlisted for the British Academy Book Prize
- 2006 Fellow of the British Academy
- 2007 Elected to membership of Academia Europaea (The Academy of Europe)
- 2007 Recording of Messiah awarded Gramophone Award, Baroque Vocal category
- 2008 Recording of Messiah awarded MIDEM, Baroque Music award
- 2010 Royal Academy of Music/Kohn Foundation Bach Prize
Awards
- OBE (2013)
- 2014 Gramophone Award for Mozart Requiem recording
- 2015 Grammy Nomination for Mozart Requiem recording
- 2015 Appointed Principal Artist, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Affiliation
- FBA, FRSE. Commissioning editor for series – Cambridge Studies in the Performance and Reception of Music (CUP)