Contributor
John Wells
Composer, Performer
Biography
John Wells is a graduate of Cambridge University, where he was organ scholar at King’s College Chapel under Sir David Willcocks. He received his organ doctorate with high distinction from Indiana University after studies with Dr Oswald Ragatz. He is well-known to New Zealand audiences as a concert performer, composer, recording artist and teacher.
Tours have taken John to Australia and beyond to England, Poland, Germany, France and North America. He established the Cambridge Summer Recitals in 1979 which has now grown to become one of England’s leading organ festivals. John is the national NZ director of the Australian & New Zealand College of Organists, Organist to the University of Auckland, Patron of the NZ Association of Organists and Visiting Artist-Teacher (Organ) at the Auckland University School of Music. As City Organist, he instigated the project to rebuild the Auckland Town Hall organ; after ten years of planning and two years' construction, the new organ was inaugurated on March 21st, 2010.
John is active as a composer: recent commissions include the Orlando Singers' suite of four NZ love poems Wild Daisies for their 40th anniversary concert. The works were well received and have appeared on subsequent programmes performed by the Singers. A new mass is under way, dedicated to the memory of David Dunningham, and a second Organ Concerto. The first concerto was premièred in 1996 and has since been heard throughout NZ (8 performances) and in Melbourne with the Orchestra Victoria.
Other commissions include a work exploiting the particular sonorities of the Tongan choral tradition, other choral works, and his fourth and fifth organ suites for a meantone instrument (inspired by the Auckland University organ). His compositions incorporate Maori scales and rhythms and his organ concerto has been performed throughout New Zealand and in Australia. He has composed 25 prelude and fugue pairs for ‘The Well-Tempered Piano’, thirty prelude and fugues in all keys. Other compositions include works for young players and youth orchestras.
Composed (131)
by Couperin, arranged for cello and piano by John Wells and Euan Murdoch, 4m