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aboutus
jasminmusic is owned and
maintained by
John Rayson MA
John studied music at
the University of Wales, Cardiff, gaining
his B.Mus degree with 1st. Class Honours, winning
the Morgan Lloyd Scholarship, later completing his MA in
20th Century Music Analysis.
John was for six years
a viola player with the orchestra of the Welsh
National Opera. More recently pursuing a freelance
career he has played for the orchestra of the English
National Opera at the London Coliseum, the orchestra
of the Royal
Opera House, Covent Garden, and for the orchestra of
the Royal Ballet. He has played for the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra,
the orchestra of English National Ballet and the Orchestra
of St.Johns, and has performed for the ensemble of
the contemporary opera company Music Theatre Wales and for the ensemble
of Nuremberg Pocket Opera Company.
Also successful as a
chamber musician he has performed at London's Wigmore
Hall and South Bank Centre, recorded for CD and broadcast
for BBC
Radio 3 and Channel 4 Television. John was a soloist
in a performance of Bach's Third Brandenburg Concerto directed by
the late Lord Menuhin in Santander, Spain in 1994. More recently
he performed again at the Wigmore Hall, London
in the UK premier of the violin concerto by the Armenian composer
Arutunian and also performed with the orchestra of Glyndebourne
Touring Opera in the premiere of the opera "Tangier
Tattoo" by the Scottish composer John Lunn. In January 2008
John was appointed visiting viola teacher and chamber music coach
at Christ's
Hospital School, Horsham, Sussex.
He has recently performed
and recorded for CD the two piano quartets of Mozart
with members of the the Arts Anglia Players and
pianist Thomas McIntosh, and performed three of Hindemith's
Sonatas for Unaccompanied Viola in successive chamber music
weekends at the 2007 Hadleigh Summer Music Festival. October 2007
saw the premiere at the Ilkley Festival of a new
composition for solo viola in a collaborative multi media performance
for children devised by the award-winning poet and photographer
Anneliese
Emmans-Dean, and performances for 2008 will include
the Ledbury Poetry
Festival, Howden Arts Festival and a special performance
in London as part of National Insect Week. John will also perform
music from the show at a solo recital at the 2008 Hadleigh
Summer Music Festival, and a CD of
the music will also be released shortly.
Other compositions have
been performed in a variety of venues and music clubs in London
and the South East, the Midlands and South Wales. Several chamber
music works were premiered at the "Music at the Mill"
series at Roxwell Mill in Essex, his Wind Quintet
was performed for the general public in the Lewisham Shopping Centre,
South London, while his incidental music for "The Magic
Mirror", a pantomime for children, was performed by
the ensemble "Babysnakes" at the Steiner Theatre, London.
In October 2004 John
completed a re-creation of the traditional tune "Home
Sweet Home" for string quartet, harp and soprano,
and the work was featured in a Gala Concert by the highly acclaimed
Welsh string quartet "Celticana" at the Patti Theatre,
Craig-y-Nos. In June 2005 his "Variations on a Traditional
Norwegian Song" for two violas was performed by Fay
Sweet and Maritza Bulcock in St Alfege's Church, Greenwich, London.
Future plans include the publication of a series of pieces for viola
and piano, provisionally entitled "Salon Music", consisting
of "forgotten" 19th Century works, and "The Butterfly
Year" - 12 Bagatelles for unaccompanied viola.
Discography
In addtion to numerous
symphonic and operatic recordings for LP, CD and DVD, John has also
appeared as a featured artist on a number of chamber music recordings;
Mozart
Piano Quartets, Soloists from the Arts Anglia Players with pianistThomas
McIntosh. Minstrel Productions, 2007.
Mana.
Music by the Irish-American flautist/composer Justin Murphy. Recorded
New Orleans, 1999.
The
Comparative Anatomy of Angels. Music by Daniel Biro. London, 1997
Edmund
Rubbra. The Four String Quartets, performed by the Sterling String
Quartet. London, 1996.
The
Rocky Road to Kansas, music by Robert Moran. London, 1994.
Frogdance.
Music by Loll Coxhill. Cardiff, 1986.
"...viola
playing...as evocative as one could wish" The Strad
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