Professor John Bryan

Biography

John Howard Bryan was appointed to the University of Huddersfield as Principal Lecturer and Performance Leader in 1994, became Head of Music & Drama in 2005 and was awarded a Professorship for his practice-led research in 2007. He studied at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels at the University of York, and has developed a career that encompasses performance, research and teaching in equal measure. At Huddersfield John teaches modules dealing with the preparation and presentation of performance in both the BMus (Hons) and MMus in Music courses and in PhD supervision. He also contributes to Musicology teaching, dealing with Renaissance music, editing and transcription, and is particularly interested in the interface between Musicology and Performance, which leads to a deeper awareness of historically informed stylistic practice. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

As a performer, John is a versatile 'early' musician working with many leading ensembles since the 1970s, including the Rose Consort of Viols, Musica Antiqua of London, and the Consort of Musicke, with whom he has made many CD and radio recordings, and appeared at international festivals in USA, Canada and throughout Europe. He plays viols, Renaissance woodwind (recorders, crumhorns, shawms, dulcians) and harpsichord, and regularly directs and conducts early music performances.

John is an artistic adviser to the internationally renowned York Early Music Festival, which he helped to start in 1977. He founded the North East Early Music Forum, and is in demand as a tutor on early music summer schools and courses, including the Dartington International Summer School. John has contributed to a range of programmes on BBC Radio 3 and was for many years a member of the Early Music Network Committee. John currently advises the National Centre for Early Music, and has been a specialist external examiner at postgraduate level for Trinity College of Music and Birmingham Conservatoire. He is a member of the Peer Review College of the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and the Principal Investigator for a five-year AHRC funded (£268,000) research project into 'The Making of the Viol in Sixteenth Century England' which runs from 2009 to 2014.

His musical interests are not confined to early music: as conductor of York Chamber Orchestra he has performed in every style from Handel and Bach to Stravinsky and Gorecki, and has also conducted performances of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte and Britten's Albert Herring for York Opera.

Research & Scholarship

My research since the late 1970s has centred on the performance of renaissance music, especially that conceived for, or performed by, the consort of viols. This has involved the development over some thirty years of a growing awareness of the importance of a range of different types of instrument, performance techniques and approaches in order to communicate the individual qualities of specific repertories, many of which have been newly introduced to the general public through my performances. These range from the earliest music for viols, from Italy in the late 15th century, through to the various repertories for voices and viols of the Jacobean period, to the late consort music of Purcell in the later 17th century.

A particular focus for my ongoing research lies in investigating the relationship between voices and viols in the performance of the Elizabethan and Jacobean repertory undertaken with the Rose Consort of Viols. The Rose Consort is the only such ensemble to use accurate reproductions of English instruments surviving from this period, strung throughout in gut and with the 'clip in ' fixed frog bows that were common before the later 'screw-frog ' bows. Both instruments and bows have a radical effect on phrasing, articulation, ornamentation and tone production, leading to research into appropriate performance practice, related to concepts of imitating vocal inflections in phrasing and timbre, in both 'vocal ' (madrigals, consort songs, motets, etc.) and 'instrumental ' (fantasias, dance music) pieces. Through a sustained programme of practice as research the Rose Consort has developed its distinctive performance vocabulary, demonstrated through a series of public performances, CDs and radio broadcasts both in the UK and abroad. In working closely with individual singers and vocal ensembles, I have explored the effect of 'restored pronunciation ' on vocal timbre, pitch, temperament and textual expression; and developed techniques by which these results impinge on and influence the ways in which the instruments can respond, creating music that is truly 'apt for voyces and vialls ' as contemporary publications suggest. This research has led to ongoing refinement of a 'consort language ' that convincingly captures the essence of, and articulation of, unvoiced texts, through an intimate understanding of the capabilities of the elements of attack and sustain possible with the bows and instruments being used.

A complementary strand of my research has been undertaken with Musica Antiqua of London, using two completely different sets of instruments, initially those based on surviving mid-16th century Venetian viols. More recently I have undertaken research into the earliest viols, as represented in Lorenzo Costa 's painting Madonna and Child enthroned with SS. Augustine, Posidonius, John & Francis, dated 1497, in the Cappella di San Agostino in San Giovanni in Monte, Bologna. This shows instruments with characteristics similar to those closely associated with the court of Isabella d 'Este, and which are therefore highly appropriate for the performance of music from her circle, such as the frottole and the many textless Franco-Flemish pieces found in manuscripts from the North Italian courts c.1500. A set of instruments was built based on those in Costa 's painting, and Musica Antiqua of London developed a radically different style of playing that explored the capabilities of these hypothetical reconstructions and combined convincingly with the voice and lute. After a sustained period of practice as research, involving exploration of different tuning systems, pitch standards and bowing techniques, the ensemble presented its initial results through concert performances, BBC radio broadcasts and two CDs. This has been followed by a number of presentations of the research at conferences, and an article on the subject was published in the highly influential journal 'Early Music',Vol.XXXVI/1 (February 2008).

Research Outputs

Areas for Research Supervision

Instruments, particularly viols, and their music in England 1500-1650

Relationships between vocal and instrumental music in the Renaissance

The viol and its repertory, 1500-1750

Historical performance practice in music