Stephen De Pledge (piano). Recorded by RNZ Concert, 13 August 2016.
Jack Body Photo: Gareth Watkins / Lilburn Trust / Wallace Arts Trust
Jack Body’s music covers almost all genres, including solo and chamber music, orchestral music, music-theatre, music for dance and film as well as electroacoustic music. A fascination with the music and cultures of Asia, particularly Indonesia, has been a strong influence. He has been commissioned by the Auckland Philharmonia, NZ String Quartet, NZSO, BBC Scottish Orchestra and many other groups, and has written three works for the Kronos Quartet.
In 1970, Jack Body attended a course in electronic music at the Institute of Sonology at Utrecht in Holland. There he worked with a computer called Project II, which influenced his thinking about musical structure in several subsequent pieces. In 'Superimpositions', composed in 1972, Jack used the computer program to direct the choices of pitch and rhythm, and apply those choices to two or three layers of simultaneous musical activity. This creates a tension between the abstract complexity of the musical systems, and the act of interpretation by a human performer. Barry Margan gave the first performance in 1975.
Kenneth Young introduces Superimpositions by Jack Body
