John Featherstone

John Featherstone is a composer who has been living and working in France for the last 16 years.

During his early years in England he developed two main interests: music, in all its forms, and languages. As a young instrumentalist he participated in various contemporary and classical groups. As a singer, he performed anything from Lennon-McCartney to Palestrina, in bars, concert halls and cathedrals. During his studies he spent two years in France before working as a teacher of modern languages and music. In 1988 he gave up teaching to concentrate on his musical career, and moved to France in 1990.

With 11 CDs and a substantial number of co-productions to his name, John tours both in solo performance and in collaboration with choirs and dance groups. His choral works include a trilogy of cantatas on the theme of the birth, life and passion of Jesus of Nazareth, and his latest creation for two choirs and contemporary chamber group, CREDO. His cantatas have been widely sung by choirs throughout France and as far afield as Quebec, French Africa and the French West Indies, as well as nearer to home in Belgium and Switzerland.

John currently works in the following areas :

• Touring in concert as a solo singer-songwriter, using keyoard, guitars & percussion • Collaborating with choirs performing his works

• Touring with larger-scale perfomances such as CREDO, in collaboration with other artists • Arranging for others, working as a studio musician

• Giving workshops on composition and worship-leading.

Last year he completed composition of a new show, ‘Passage’, a dialogue between faith and scepticism, for the Sacred Art Festival in Orléans cathedral in the autumn 2006. His experience in different musical genres is evident in his compositions, in which classical influences and contemporary modes interlink.

Some more recent performance venues have included the cathedrals of Chartres and Nancy, and the Kursaal at Dunkerque for his Easter cantata, the Parc des Expositions in La Roche sur Yon for a musical prepared for 3,000 young people, and Clermont-Ferrand Opera House and the cathedrals of Orléans and Aix en Provence for CREDO. He has also performed at Bercy stadium as a guitarist, and worked recently as musical director for a youth event for 11,000 young people.

His experience in the educative field includes the musical direction of a project for the millenium called JC2000, in which 18,000 schools were involved, with a final concert at the Albert Hall in London.

website: www.johnfeatherstone.com