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John Young is a composer working in the field of electroacoustic music.  His output includes works for multi-channel loudspeaker environments, music for instruments and electroacoustic sounds and electroacoustic documentary conceived for radio. 

John‘s music explores the use of sound recording as a creative tool, which he uses to bring sounds from natural environments into the studio where he transforms and refashions them with digital audio tools.  This involves merging sound-images of the real world with more abstract sonic materials, creating elaborate designs that challenge traditional notions of musical materials and form but also invite the listener to enter imaginative worlds where familiar objects and environments are given new meanings.

John received his PhD in musicology from the University of Canterbury in 1990, and in the same year was appointed Lecturer in Music at the Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand) where he was also Director of the Electroacoustic Music Studios 1995-2000.  He joined DMU in 2000 and from 2009-12 served as Head of ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ for the Faculty of Humanities, and 2014-2017 was Director of the Universty's Graduate School.

His recent compositions include a multichannel audio installation Sun Deck Set Cogitation based on the poetry of Simon Perril, premiered in full in 2023 at the Phoenix Cinema and Arts Centre, Leicester and Tremolo (2024) for viola, bass clarinet, piano and electroacoustic sounds, and (2021) for piano and electroacoustic sounds. A new compact disc was published in 2024 by emprientes DIGITALes (Montréal), including Le Chant en dehors (2022) originally set in an 18-channel immersive audio dome format,  Arioso (2021), Filaments and Phases (2023) and Sweet Anticipation (2018).  In 2015 John premiered the 60-minute Red Sky, for alto flute, bass/B-flat clarinet, piano and 14-channel electroacoustic sounds (Carla Rees, alto flute; Heather Roche, clarinets; Xenia Pestova-Bennett, piano) framing recorded oral histories of twenty men's and womens's experience of World War One. Two further works based on oral histories of war experience Once He Was a Gunner and An Angel at Mons were published in 2024 on by emprientes DIGITALes.
John's most recent article is 'Scaling Form', in(Florence University Press, 2024). 

Music, Technology and Innovation ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Centre

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John’s extended radiophonic work Ricordiamo Forlì was awarded the Euphonie d’Or in 2010 by the Institut International de Musique Electroacoustique de Bourges, France.  The work relates the story of his soldier father and civilian mother meeting in Forlì, Italy in 1944 during the 8th Army campaign there, using oral histories, war correspondent reports and other recorded sound from the period in conjunction with an extensive array of electroacoustically processed sound to convey the narrative and emotional significance of the events.  The work gained a first prize in the Institute’s open competition in 2007, one of the world’s most significant forums for electroacoustic music.  Euphonies d’Or awards have been made on two past occasions and are selected from the works previously awarded prizes in the competition.  35 in total have been awarded over the years, representing one work for each year of the competition’s history, which, in the words of the IMEB, “represent particularly brilliant moments in the history of electroacoustic music.”

• Composition (electroacoustic and instrumental/vocal) particularly ‘acousmatic’ electroacoustic works focusing on recorded environmental sound sources and digital signal processing
• Construction of narrative in music
• Spectral composition
• Use of historical sound sources in electroacoustic music
• Multi-channel approaches to electroacoustic composition
• Analytical approaches to electroacoustic composition, especially the role of source recognition and the relationship between realistic sound-imagery and spectromorphological transformation
• Form in electroacoustic music.

John welcomes postgraduate and research students with interests in any of the above areas.

Composition (electroacoustic, instrumental and vocal); orchestration; acoustics for musicianship; history and analysis of 20th and 21st century music.

MusB(Hons), PhD (Cantuar.)

Music, Technology and Innovation BA (Hons)

Music, Technology and Performance BA (Hons)

• MTEC3004 Making and Performing Music 3
• MTEC3001 Final Project

2022 First Prize, Prix Francis-Dhomont—Jury prize, Festival AKOUSMA Montréal (Le Chant en dehors).

2022 Audience Prize (ex aequo) Concurso de Composición Electroacústica Destellos, Mar del Plata, Argentina (Arioso).

2021 First Prize (instrumental section) Musica Nova, Composition Competition, Prague (SoundPlay).

2020 First Prize, (acousmatic section) Musica Nova Composition Competition, Prague (Abwesenheit).

2019 First Prize Klang! International Competition, Monpellier, France (Three Spaces in Mid-Air).

2019 First Prize (instrumental section) Musica Nova, Prague (Magnetic Resonance).

2015 Recipient of Klingler Electroacoustic Residency, Bowling Green State University, Ohio.

2011 Honorary Mention, Musica Nova Composition Competition, Prague (X)

2010 Euphonie d’Or, Bourges International Competition (Ricordiamo Forlì)

2007 First prize, 34th Concours Internationaux de Musique et d’Art Sonore Electroacoustiques, Bourges (Ricordiamo Forlì)

2003 Third Prize ‘Pierre Schaeffer’ Electronic Music Composition Competition, Pescara, Italy (Sju)

2001 Finalist, ARTS XXI competition, Valencia, Spain (Sju)

1997 Special Mention, Prix Noroit, Arras, France (Virtual)

1997 Pre-selected, Bourges International Electroacoustic Music competition, France (Virtual)

Philharmonia Community Board (Leicester) 2023-present

Peer Review College, Arts and Humanities ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Council (2009-12)

Board Member, Sonic Arts Network (2022-05)

24 August 2025 Concert Bruit de la neige 'Cosmos respiration' Annency.

2024 The Long and the Short of Acousmatic Forms. Paper presented at the 2024 Noisefloor Conference, Lisbon.

2020 Listening Back and Shaping Form. Keynote address, Audio Testimonies Symposium, Bournemouth University/University of the Arts, London.

2017 Partial Objects: Acousmatic Spectralism.  Paper presented at the Spectralisms Conference, University of Oxford/IRCAM.

2016 Oral History as Form. Paper presented at the 2016 New York Electroacoustic Music Festival.

2013 Beginnings and Endings. Paper presented at the Electroacoustic Music Studies Conference, Lisbon.

2011 Thinking in Sound: Sounding the Imagination. Institute of Musical ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡, DREAM Symposium: Technology and Musical Thought, University of London.

2010 Playing with Space: Inside and Outside Sound. Keynote address, New Zealand Electroacoustic Symposium, University of Auckland.

2009 Narrative, Rhetoric and the Personal: Storytelling in Acousmatic Music.  Paper presented at the 2009 Electroacoustic Music Studies Conference, Buenos Aires.

2007 Electroacoustic Musicianship: Sounds in Search of Music? Paper presented at the Digital Resources in the Humanities and Arts Conference, Dartington College.

2007 A Practice-based Approach to Using Acoustics and Technology in Musicianship Training.  With Picinali, L and Moraitis, D. Proceedings of the 2007 International Computer Music Conference, Copenhagen: International Computer Music Association: 61-64.

2007 Issues of Form in Electroacoustic Music. Paper presented at Electroacoustic Music Studies Network Conference, Leicester.

2006 Sound Design and Sonic Imagery. Sound Art and Creative Technology:  One-day Conference on Electroacoustic Music. London Metropolitan University.

2006 Figures and Forms: Acousmatic thought in an interactive age.  Ai-maako Festival, Santiago de Chile.

2005 Sound, Sign and Sense. Paper presented at Sonimágenes, Buenos Aires

2005 Ear and Eye. Keynote lecture, Sonimágenes, Buenos Aires

2005 Sound In Structure: Applying Spectromorphological Concepts. Paper presented at Electroacoustic Music Studies Network Conference, Montréal, . 

2004 Sound Morphology and the Articulation of Structure in Electroacoustic Music. Résonances conference, IRCAM, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 2003.

First supervisor:

. DVD-A release on empreintes DIGITALES with Ricordiamo Forlì and Arrivederci, funded by the Arts and Humanities ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Council (UK) and Creative New Zealand.

Red Sky (2015) for alto flute, bass/B-flat clarinet, piano and 14-channel electroacoustic sounds. Funded by Arts Council England.

 (2017) for TRIONYS ensemble. Funded by Arts Council England.