John Simon was born in Cape Town, South Africa in 1944. He trained as an economist and moved to the UK in 1965. He studied musical composition part-time for four years in London, where his main composition teachers were James Patten (Trinity College of Music) and John Lambert (Royal College of Music). In order to earn a living he entered teaching, becoming Head of Music at the Bishop Ramsay Church of England School in Ruislip in the London Borough of Hillingdon, where he remained for four years. This was a prosperous period for music in English schools and he was able to build a successful school symphony orchestra and ran two choirs. While working in Hillingdon, some of his early compositions received performances at school and borough concerts.

In 1979 he returned to South Africa at the height of grand apartheid and taught music on the Cape Flats, a predominantly ‘coloured’ area of Cape Town, while at the same time keeping up his creative work as a composer. His opposition to apartheid led him to write a number of radical pieces that responded to the events of the time, which made him numerous enemies both inside and outside music. As a consequence his work was largely ignored, some of it banned by the South African Broadcasting Corporation. When Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote to him in 1987 saying this was a backhand compliment of sorts, it strengthened his resolve to carry on composing. The first ‘struggle’ piece, Threnody 1 (subtitled ‘Rage, rage against the dying of the light’), written in 1980 and scored for string orchestra in thirteen parts, was his response to the fatal shooting of a fifteen-year-old boy from an unmarked police vehicle in Cape Town. It had to wait until 1992 to receive its first performance. Threnody 2 (originally subtitled ‘Steve Biko in Heaven’) for strings, clarinet and timpani, composed in 1981 and dedicated to the memory of Steve Biko, was under embargo at the SABC until 1993 (it was the first piece of serious music to use the anthem ’Nkosi Sikele’ iAfrika as a theme). It has since been widely performed and broadcast, inter alia at the Edinburgh International Festival and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. His large-scale Requiem for Orchestra (originally entitled ‘Requiem of 1984’), a work in which the Latin words of the mass are ‘sung’ by instruments rather than by voices, received its BBC premiere and first performances under Edward Downes, the work having been commended by Simon Rattle (‘Not only is it extremely professionally and intelligently written, but also deeply felt. One hopes that the predictions of the music do not come true.’). It has since received many performances and broadcasts. Another work in this series of musical responses to apartheid was the pentagonal Violin Concerto, composed between 1981 and 1990, dedicated to the victims of Sharpeville and premiered by the BBC in 1992. A further ‘struggle’ piece was completed in 1989 -the symphonic suite Children of the Sun (Los Hijos del Sol), a musical depiction of the conquest of the Incan Empire by the Spanish. Here the dark colours of the earlier works give way to lighter shades and a wide variety of melodic ideas. All of these compositions make use of the opposing elements of serialism and tonality, which ensures their contemporary freshness.

John Simon has written two Piano Concertos. His Piano Concerto No 1 is a bravura piece using the dual elements of serialism and tonality. It evolved through four versions written between 1969 and 2003. The third draft was accepted by the BBC for a premiere in 1991, but the composer withheld it, rewriting it once more before it was finally performed in 2004. Although the structure and orchestration changed over the years, the original piano part underwent few changes. His Piano Concerto No 2, composed between 1977 and 1979, is a tonal piece in popular contemporary style and was written to appeal to a wider audience. It has received a number of performances and broadcasts.

The composer’s largest work, his Symphony of 1993-1997, has as its unifying theme the continent of Africa, with its all its vibrancy and rhythm. The work’s four movements have all been performed a number of times, although the work has never been played as a whole, perhaps because of the demands it makes on players. It represented a return to full tonality and is unusual in that three of its four movements are in fast tempi.

John Simon writes poetry. Some of his poems have been published in leading poetry magazines. Not surprisingly, vocal music is important for him. His orchestral/ensemble song cycle for soprano, Portrait of Emily, settings of five of Emily Dickinson’s poems framed by an orchestral prologue and epilogue depicting Amherst, Massachusetts, where she spent her entire life, has been broadcast frequently. Other vocal settings include poems by John Masefield, Wilfred Owen, Byron and Shelley. He has written three a cappella choral works, one a setting of Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach (composed 1983), the second a setting of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s Justus quidem tu es, Domine (composed 2011), and Venice the Beautiful (composed 2014) a setting of one of his own poems.

His chamber output consists largely of works for solo instruments with piano. Most of these pieces have received performances in the United Kingdom, the most significant being his Wind Quintet of 1973, frequently broadcast on BBC Radio 3, and his String Quartet of 2011.

His extensive output for solo piano includes five piano sonatas and a number of virtuoso concert solos.

After his work on the Cape Flats came to an end in 1996 he spent most of his time teaching and composing in the UK, visiting South Africa between 2003 and 2005 to take up the posts of Composer-in-Residence to the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra (the first such appointment in South Africa) and lecturer in orchestration at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s School of Music in Durban. He was charged with the KZNPO’s ‘New Music Initiative’ whose aim was to bring orchestral skills to KwaZulu-Natal-based composers and arrangers who came mainly from choral and vocal backgrounds.

In 2004 he was commissioned to orchestrate the Zulu cantata Zizi Lethu! (‘Our Hope!’), written by Phelelani Mnomiya, a leading South African composer of choral music. This orchestral realisation, which he completed with the help of the late Christopher James, was featured as the main work in the ‘Ten Years of Democracy’ concert at the Barbican in London in November 2004, performed by two major South African choirs with soloists and the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by François-Xavier Roth. The cantata was performed elsewhere in Europe, and led him to write an orchestral piece entitled Dance to Freedom, which uses some of the freedom songs as themes. This piece was premiered at the Cape Town International Festival in November 2007.

Other more recent orchestral works include the mystical A Peal of Bells for D.B.Cooper for strings, tubular bells and celesta (2006-2010), premiered by Owain Arwel Hughes with the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra; a symphonic suite around the legend of Tristan and Isolde entitled Fanfares for Tristan (2010-2011); and an anti-war composition called A Cry from a World Aflame for strings, trumpets and percussion (2009-2010) premiered by the BBC Philharmonic in 2015. This work depicts a world where conflict and war are ever-present factors and where there are many losers -combatants, civilians and children. His most recent orchestral work is entitled Seeing Stars (2015-16)

In 2011 his Late Gothic Overture was the winning composition in a competition organised by the South African National Youth Orchestra (submission of works made on a strictly anonymous basis).

His Coquette for solo flute was chosen to represent South Africa at the ISCM's World Music Days 2018 in Beijing.

List of Musical Works by John Simon

Opus 1 Salon Fantasy with Bel Canto Old Time Waltz for Piano 1965/2014
Opus 2 Thirteen Preludes and a Postlude for Piano 1965/2014
Opus 3 Sea Fever (setting of John Masefield for tenor and piano) 1965/2018
Opus 4 Aspirations and Dreams: Ballet Music for Solo Piano 1965/2014
Opus 5 The Triumph and the Lament for Piano 1965/2012
Opus 6 Piano Sonata No 1 1965/2014
Opus 7 The Pity of War (settings of 3 war poems by Wilfred Owen for tenor/soprano and piano) 1967/2002/2018
Opus 8 Rondo in C for Piano 1960-67/2014
Opus 9 Five Romantic Songs (settings of Byron and Shelley for tenor and piano) 1967/2018
Opus 10 Piano Sonata No 2 1967/2012
Opus 11 Six Aphorisms for Piano 1967/2014
Opus 12 Chanson de la Nuit for Piano 1967/2014
Opus 13 Piano Sonata No 3 1968/2011
Opus 14 Sonatina for Solo Flute 1967/2018
Opus 14a Sonatina for Flute arranged for two Flutes 1979/2018
Opus 15 Piano Concerto No 1 (in 3 movements 4 versions – final version completed 2003) 1969-2003
Opus 16 A Calendar of Twelve Piano Miniatures 1971/2014
Opus 17 Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Purcell for Piano 1971/2014
Opus 18 Piano Sonatina No 1 1972/2014
Opus 19 Piano Sonatina No 2 1972/2012
Opus 20 Two Nocturnes for Piano 1972/2014
Opus 21 Nocturne for a Dead Soldier for Piano 1972/2014
Opus 22 Piano Sonata No 4 1972/2010
Opus 23 Wind Quintet (for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn) 1973
Opus 24 Piano Sonata No 5 1973/2009
Opus 25 Miniature Woodcut for Piano 1974/2004
Opus 26 Coquette for Solo Flute (AKA Scena for Flute) 1974/2018
Opus 27 Five Parody Preludes for Piano 1975/2014
Opus 28 Mad Etude/Etude Folle for Piano 1975/2004
Opus 29 Waterscape for Piano (AKA Waters of the Cape) 1975/2014
Opus 30 Elegy and Capriccio for Violin and Piano 1976/2005/2018
Opus 31 Piano Concerto No 2 (in 3 movements) 1976/1979
Opus 32 Elegy for Oboe and Piano 1978
Opus 33 Little Suite for Orchestra (AKA ‘Divertimento for Orchestra’) (in 4 movements) 1978/2006
Opus 33a Lamentation for Seven Instruments (movement 2 of ‘Little Suite’) 1978
Opus 34 Allegro for Flute and Piano 1978
Opus 35 Noël Ahoy! (3 medieval English Christmas texts for trebles, children’s choir, piano and percussion) 1978/2018
Opus 36 Sonata for Bassoon and Piano 1978/2018
Opus 37 Threnody 1 for String Orchestra/String Ensemble (AKA ‘Rage, Rage against the Dying of the Light’) 1980
Opus 38 New Azania Overture (AKA ‘Antipodean Overture’) 1980
Opus 38a New Azania Overture arranged for Wind Band 2014
Opus 39 Threnody 2 for Strings, Clarinet and Timpani (AKA ‘Steve Biko in Heaven’) 1981
Opus 40 Violin Concerto (in 5 movements) 1981/1990
Opus 41 Dover Beach (setting of Matthew Arnold’s poem for a cappella choir) 1983/2018
Opus 42 Requiem for Orchestra (orchestral requiem in 4 movements -AKA ‘Requiem of 1984’) 1983/1985
Opus 43 Portrait of Emily (settings of 5 Poems of Emily Dickinson for soprano and orchestra/ensemble/piano) 1987
Opus 44 Children of the Sun (symphonic suite in 4 movements) 1989
Opus 45 Symphony (in 4 movements) 1997/1997
Opus 45d Late Gothic Overture (4th movement of symphony) 1996/1997
Opus 46 Dance to Freedom (for symphony orchestra) 2004/2005
Opus 47 A Peal of Bells for D.B.Cooper for strings, tubular bells and celesta 2006
Opus 47a A Peal of Bells for cello and piano 2010/2018
Opus 48 A Cry from a World Aflame for strings, trumpets and percussion 2009/2010
Opus 49 Fanfares for Tristan (symphonic suite for orchestra) 2011
Opus 50 Justus Quidem Tu Es, Domine (setting of G.M.Hopkins for a cappella choir) 2011
Opus 51 Farewell to Music for Piano 2010/2011
Opus 52 String Quartet 2011/2018
Opus 53 Venice the Beautiful (setting of own poem for a cappella choir) 2015
Opus 54 For Whom the Bell Tolls for Piano 2015
Opus 55 Seeing Stars (AKA Night Ride with Hard Landing for Symphony Orchestra) 2015/2016
Opus 56 Fugal Fantasia for String Orchestra (prelude, fugue and postlude) 2018/2019