About the Composer

                    John Rea

                    Read about the composers composition/s

                    John Rea leads a triple career as a composer, teacher and concert producer. The recipient of many awards, he is frequently commissioned and has written works in several genres, including chamber music, music-theatre, electroacoustic music and compositions for large ensemble such as orchestra, ballet, choral, and opera.

                    Rea's recent creative projects include: Sacrée Landowska, music theatre (Montréal, 2001); Music, according to Aquinas, for chamber choir-12 voices, two clarinets and cello (Vancouver, 2000); the incidental music for the play Urfaust-tragédie subjective (after Goethe and Pessoa) for Théâtre UBU (Montreal/Weimar, 1999); and a reorchestration for 21 musicians of Alban Berg's opera Wozzeck for the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (Banff/Montreal, 1995).

                    His compositions have been presented in a number of important events around the world, such as the New Music America Festival in Philadelphia, L'Itinéraire and the Festival Musica in France, in Hungary, the Festival de Liège in Belgium, at the Holland Festival, as well as at Festivals of the Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) in Denmark, Canada and Sweden.

                    Besides his activities as a composer, John Rea has lectured and published articles on 20th-century music and, since 1973, taught composition, music theory and music history at McGill University where he served as Dean of the Faculty of Music from 1986 to 1991. Currently, John serves on the editorial board for the French-language new music journal, Circuit, and is on the artistic and programming committee of the concert organization, Société de Musique Contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ).