Thursday 2 August 2001 at 8.00 pm

Barry Jordan

Barry Jordan was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, in 1957. He studied initially at the University of Cape Town, where his composition teachers included James May, Peter Klatzow and Arnold van Wyk, and graduated from there in 1979. For four years thereafter he was a clarinettist in the band of the SA Police in Pretoria, during which time he co-founded and directed the contemporary music ensemble Obelisk. In 1983 he was awarded the SAMRO (South African Music Rights Organisation) overseas scholarship for composition, which he took up only some years later. In 1984 he returned to Cape Town for two years, teaching music in a school and working towards his MMus, which was awarded with distinction at the end of 1985 for the orchestral work Last Things. This work was premiered in September 1998 by the Magdeburgische Philharmonie and broadcast by Central German radio (MDR). At the beginning of 1986 he left for Europe, where he studied first in Vienna (composition with Francis Burt and organ with Martin Haselböck) and later in Lübeck, where he completed the "Konzertexamen" in organ (also under Martin Haselböck) and the higher diploma in church music. Concurrently he worked in Schleswig-Holstein's capital city of Kiel, at first as assistant to Hans Gebhard at the town church of St Nikolai and later as Director of Music at the suburban Osterkirche. He achieved a reputation as a solo player and as a choral conductor during this time. In 1994 he was appointed as Organist and Choral Director to the 13th century gothic cathedral of Magdeburg, and took up office there in August of that year. He has been instrumental in establishing a recital series of growing importance and popularity in the cathedral, and plans for a new instrument are under way. His own concert career takes him to important instruments in Germany and abroad.