John Meirion Rea: Composer and Artist

Despite my background is as a composer of 'pure music’ for the concert platform, theatre, and film; I have always felt an urge to integrate the unexpected, or the conceptual into my own work. An early example is Breakbeat; a work for string orchestra, two turntables, and dub delay, which has a visual and performance element at its core; or DISCO CONCRÈTE: a Ffotogallery commission for Diffusion, 2017: an installation work featuring noise and modular synths.

My recent work is a continuation of this exploration, only more so: it shifts between compositional narrative and sound, with an added and new fascination with integrating spoken word, particularly Welsh dialects, and the development of a visual language. Extra-musical ideas, as exemplified by the work | təʊl |, Atgyfodi, and HOSPES are the inevitable result of this journey, which take advantage of emerging modes of immersive presentation.

I am currently realising an Arts Council of Wales funded R&D looking into spatial sound and Virtual Reality, and the Welsh language in the prison system in Wales.