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JOHN
HARLE is
one of the world's leading Saxophonists in the Concert Hall today.
He
has recorded more than 25 Concerto and Recital CDs, his solo
recording of concerti by Debussy, Villa-Lobos and Glazunov having
sold over 200,000copies to date, and he has performed in Concertos
with many of the major Orchestras in the World.
He
has had over twenty five concerti written for him, by composers such
as John Tavener, Michael Nyman, Gavin Bryars, Mark Anthony Turnage,
Michael Torke and Harrison Birtwistle.
In 1995, his outrageous performance of Birtwistle's Saxophone
Concerto Panic, premiered at the Last Night of the Proms, propelled him to a
level of high international recognition. In 1996, John followed this
performance with his own work, Terror
and Magnificence, recorded by Decca, and performed by himself
with Elvis Costello and soprano Sarah Leonard, which culminated in a
sell-out concert at the Royal Festival Hall.
In
the first half of 2000, Harle performed three world premieres: John
Tavener's Total Eclipse at
St. Paul's Cathedral with the Academy of Ancient Music, Dominic
Muldowney's The Fall of Jerusalem and Joby Talbot's The Same Dog. His recent performances of Sally Beamish's Saxophone
Concerto, The Imagined Sound
of Sun on Stone, (written for him to premiere at the St. Magnus
Festival in June 1999) were received with overwhelming critical
acclaim. This work has been released on BIS, and filmed for BBCTV in
2003. He is also a conductor, musical director and producer in a
variety of fields, covering artists as diverse as Paul McCartney,
Elvis Costello, Moondog, Ute Lemper and Lesley Garrett.
He
has worked prominently with the conductors Riccardo Chailly, Michael
Tilson Thomas, Andrew Davis, Sir Neville Marriner and Franz Welser-Most.
In recital, John Harle works regularly with Sir Richard Rodney
Bennett and John Lenehan. He
has also begun very exciting collaborations with Willard White, the
Brodsky Quartet, Evelyn Glennie, and the Guildhall Strings. In 1989
John Harle was appointed Professor of Saxophone and Chamber Music at
the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.
Harle
recently guest-conducted and performed with the Winterthur Orchestra
and has accepted an immediate re-invitation to play and conduct with
the Orchestra as Artist in Residence. Recent concerts include
performances with Herbie Hancock and the London Philharmonic, the
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Northern Sinfonia, English Sinfonia, London
Mozart Players and Lucerne Symphony.
In
his remarkable career Harle has written 35 concert works and over 40
film and television scores. Harle has also been nominated for a
variety of awards. He has won a Royal Television Society award for
his theme to BBC 1's Silent
Witness, and received nominations for Defence
of the Realm and Summer in
the Suburbs, as well as a Grammy nomination for Terror
and Magnificence.
In
1998 he was a castaway on Sue Lawley's Desert Island Discs on Radio
4. Soon to follow was the performance at the Albert Hall in the
Proms of 1998 of his opera, Angel
Magick, (with a libretto by its director, David Pountney.) In
May 2001 John Harle had a huge success at the Bath Festival
conducting a newly commissioned score by Will Gregory, (-of
Goldfrapp) for People on
Sunday, a 67' silent film of 1929.
In
2000, at the BBC Proms again, he not only performed and conducted,
but also presented the annual BBC Blue Peter Prom. In 2001, he
performed at the Proms with the BBC Concert Orchestra and Elmer
Bernstein. The Proms of 2002 saw John Harle perform the premiere of
his own Saxophone Concerto, "The Little Death Machine",
with John Lubbock and the Orchestra of St John's Smith Square, as
well as a new composition for the Kings Singers with a new text by
Iain Sinclair. Future Concerto commissions for John Harle include a
Double Concerto with the Cellist Stephen Isserlis by John Tavener,
Steve Mackey, and a second Concerto by Harrison Birtwistle.
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