John Bickerton
News: March 15, 2025
My setting of “Alleluia, Hosanna In Excelsis” has been published by Fred Bock Publishing. The setting pairs “Alleluia” with the familiar doxology “Glory be to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost…”
News: January 6, 2025
New CD Release: Atlas Eclipticalis – The Music of John Cage and Earle Brown
This album features chamber ensemble performances of renowned indeterminate and graphic music scores from what became known in the 1950s as the New York School. The term refers to a circle of composers, including John Cage, Morton Feldman, Earle Brown, and Christian Wolff, who drew their name from the Abstract Expressionist painters gaining notoriety at the time. The group, along with the painters and composers, famously gathered at The Cedar Bar in Greenwich Village for marathon late-night discussions and unbridled camaraderie.
Atlas Eclipticalis prominently features four seminal works by composer John Cage, including Cage’s trilogy—Atlas Eclipticalis, Variations IV, and 0’00”—brought together on record here for the first time. It concludes with a distinctive interpretation of Cage’s “Radio Music.” Complementing these pieces are two innovative graphic scores by Earle Brown, “November 1952” and “December 1952,” from his influential Folio collection.
“John Bickerton fashions lively improvisations out of deceptively simple themes. The pianist is adept at luring his listener in through repetition before catching him unaware with striking variation” Coda Magazine
Bickerton’s compositions are wonderful things, reminiscent of Mary Lou Williams’s, Monkish but in an updated way, bringing dissonance and that apparently awkward grace to the fore and letting swing transform into the pulse of free improvisation.
Richard Cochrane, International Improvised Music Archive
A wonderfully expressive pianist, an unflamboyant leader capable of singing through his melodies. He works expansively but from a few chords, adding new twists and accents to his simple phrasings. His chords are uncluttered yet rangy and he speaks volumes in tone and feeling, like a singer of ballads. Copper Press
