John Metcalf (composer)

John Metcalf MBE (born 1946) is a Welsh-Canadian composer. He has worked in many forms, including large-scale operas, choral and orchestral works, and chamber music, both instrumental and vocal. His music is tonal, and is often rhythmically complex, with much use of polyrhythms. Biography John Metcalf was born in Swansea in 1946, and spent his childhood on the Gower Peninsula, at Reynoldston and Penmaen. When he was six, the family moved to Cardiff, where his father had taken a new job. He was educated at Dean Close School, Cheltenham. He intended to read classics at university, but he sent a composition to the composer, Alun Hoddinott, who encouraged him to instead study music at Cardiff University. Following graduation, he went on to study composition with the Australian Don Banks, and electronic music with Hugh Davies in London. In 1971 he became director of music at Atlantic College, near Llantwit Major in Glamorgan, also directing the associated St Donat’s Arts Centre as well as the Vale of Glamorgan Festival, which he founded in 1969, developing a lively policy of encouraging performances of contemporary music. In 1977-8 he spent a year in the United States on a UK-USA Bicent