John King, composer, violist and guitarist, has had his music presented in many major festivals, including the Melbourne International Arts festival; the T.B.A. Festival (PICA, Portland, OR); Intermedium 1 Festival (Berlin); Creative Time's "Music in the Anchorage" (NY); and the Bang On A Can Marathon (NY). Mr. King’s experimental opera, la belle captive, based on texts by Alain Robbe-Grillet, was premiered in Buenos Aires at the Centro Experimental de Teatro Colon in April 2003, receiving further performances at the Fronteras Festival (London, Sept. 2004) and The Kitchen, NYC in Jan. 2005. His opera Herzstück/Heartpiece, with text by Heiner Müller, was premiered at the Warsaw Autumn Festival in 1999. Show more
His commissions and collaborations include those for the Kronos Quartet, Red {an orchestra}, Ethel, Eclipse Quartet, Mondriaan Quartet, the Albany Symphony/”Dogs of Desire”, The Juilliard School’s “Axiom Ensemble”, Bang On A Can All-Stars, Mannheim Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet, Rezonanz Ensemble, New York City Ballet/Diamond Project, Stuttgart Ballet, Ballets de Monte Carlo, SüdWestRundfunk (Baden-Baden), Pennsylvania Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, and the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. He has written music for the Clussgarten Theater in Ludwigsburg, Germany (Shakespeare’s Tempest, Goethe’s Faust and Hesse’s Steppenwolf) as well as Target Margin in New York and the Children’s Theater Company in Minneapolis.
He has received grants from the NEA/Music in Motion, New York State Council on the Arts, Jerome Foundation, Asian Cultural Council, Meet The Composer/Readers Digest Dance Commissioning Program, Minnesota Composers Forum, the Fund for US Artists at International Festivals, and New York Foundation for the Arts.
Mr. King curated the music for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s EVENTS at the Joyce Theater and at The Barbican Center in London and is currently co-director of the Music Committee. He was Music Curator at The Kitchen from 1999-2003.
He has 2 new CD releases, AllSteel (Tzadik) and Ethel (Cantaloupe), both featuring the string quartet Ethel performing four of his recent major compositions. Show less
