John Tilbury
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John Tilbury (born 1936) is a British pianist.
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, memorably repudiated by Tilbury's colleague, drummer Eddie Prévost, who made a critique of it the centerpiece of his book Minute Particulars.
Another notable recent recording of Tilbury's was Duos for Doris (Erstwhile), a collaboration with Keith Rowe (in essence, an AMM recording minus Prévost). It is widely considered a landmark recording in the genre of electroacoustic improvisation (or "e.a.i.").
[edit] External links
- John Tilbury Statement
- On Playing Feldman by John Tilbury
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