John Palmer

John Palmer took his first piano lessons at the age of six. He soon rejected traditional music teaching and began to pursue his own musical path.  In the seventies he began to compose and perform as a songwriter and keyboard player. He played in several groups of experimental pop and free jazz on mainland Europe. In the eighties he felt impelled to deepen his musical interests and began to train again in the classical music tradition. 

Palmer graduated in piano studies from the Conservatory of Music of Lucerne while beginning to write instrumental, chamber and orchestral music. He returned to London in 1990 and studied composition at Trinity College of Music and City University where he completed a PhD in 1994.  He also studied with Edison Denisov, Jonathan Harvey and Vinko Globokar. 

Since the early nineties Palmer has extended his compositional interests with electronics. His compositional techniques vary from work to work, from the application of vigorous methodologies to the most spontaneous unfolding of musical ideas based on pure intuition.

John Palmer’s music has been performed worldwide and awarded prizes in London (1990 and 1995), Paris (2011), Lucerne (1992), Bourges (1994 and 2009), Tokyo (1995), Klagenfurt (1996), Udine (2010). Recordings of John Palmer’s music have been released on the following labels: Animato, Taukay, Sargasso, Elektroschock Records, Living Artists, and Mnemosyne Synthese.