John Tilbury (born 1936) is a British pianist.
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Early life and education
Tilbury studied piano at the Royal College of Music with Arthur Alexander and James Gibb and also with Zbigniew Drzewiecki in Warsaw. 1968 he was the winner of the Gaudeamus competition in the Netherlands.
Musical career
He is considered one of the foremost interpreters of Morton Feldman's music, and since 1980 has been a member of the free improvisation group AMM. During the 1960s, Tibury was closely associated with the composer Cornelius Cardew, whose music he has interpreted and recorded and a member of the Scratch Orchestra. He is currently completing a biography of Cardew to be published in early 2007. He has also recorded the works of Howard Skempton and John White, among many others, and has also performed adaptations of the radio plays of Samuel Beckett. With guitarist Keith Rowe's electroacoustic ensemble M.I.M.E.O., Tilbury recorded The Hands of Caravaggio, inspired by the painter's The Taking of Christ {1602). In this live performance, twelve of the members of M.I.M.E.O. were positioned around the piano in a deliberate echo of Christ's Last Supper. The thirteenth M.I.M.E.O. member (Cor Fuhler) is credited with "inside piano" as he interacted and interfered with Tilbury's playing by manipulating and damping the instrument's strings, essentially doing piano preparation in real time. Critic Brian Olewnick describes the album as "A staggering achievement, one is tempted to call The Hands of Caravaggio the first great piano concerto of the 21st century."[1]. The recording was, however, questionably repudiated by Tilbury's colleague, drummer Eddie Prévost, who made a critique of it the centerpiece of his book Minute Particulars, which led to the breakup of the AMM core trio. Another notable recent recording of Tilbury's was Duos for Doris (like The Hands of Caravaggio also on Erstwhile Records), a collaboration with Keith Rowe (one could say an AMM recording minus Prévost). It is widely considered a landmark recording in the genre of electroacoustic improvisation (or "EAI").
Selected Discography
- 1988 - "Dave Smith's First Piano Concert" - Matchless
- 1996 - "Howard Skempton: Well, Well, Cornelius" - Sony Classical
- 1996 - "Cornelius Cardew: Piano Music 1959~70" - Matchless
- 1998 - "The Issue at Hand" (with Yoshikazu Iwamoto, Eddie Prévost) 2CD - Matchless
- 1999 - "Two Chapters and an Epilogue" (mit Evan Parker - Matchless
- 2000 - "Morton Feldman: All Piano" 4CD - LondonHALL
- 2002 - MIMEO "The Hands of Caravaggio" - Erstwhile
- 2002 - "Christian Wolff: Early Piano Music (1951-1961)" - Matchless
- 2003 - Keith Rowe, John Tilbury "Duos for Doris" - Erstwhile
- 2004 - John Tilbury, Eddie Prévost "Discrete Moments" - Matchless
- 2005 - "Plays Samuel Beckett" - Matchless
- 2005 - "Barcelona Piano Solo" - Rossbin
- 2005 - Marcus Schmickler, John Tilbury "Variety" - A-Musik
External links
- John Tilbury Statement
- On Playing Feldman by John Tilbury
