John Hearne

John Hearne was born Reading, his parents having come from Wales. Since 1970 he has lived in Scotland. He studied in St Luke's College, Exeter, and at University College of Wales, Aberystwyth where he gained a First Class Honours degree and a Masters degree. For a time he taught music in Iceland, and for 17 years was a lecturer at Aberdeen College of Education. He was the first Chairman of the Scottish Society of Composers, and was the Chairman of the Scottish Music Advisory Committee of the BBC from 1986 to 1990. He is now a free-lance composer, singer and conductor, and was Chairman of Gordon Forum for the Arts in Aberdeenshire for three years. He was Warden for the Performers and Composers Section of the Incorporated Society of Musicians,, and is a former member of the Executive Committee of the Composers' Guild of Great Britain. In 1985, John Hearne's suite for Brass and Percussion, THE FOUR HORSEMEN, was premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It was voted the best new work heard on the Fringe that year and the composer received the Festival City Radio Trophy from Radio Forth. This work has since been performed many times by a number of different groups, including the BBC Scottish Brass Ensemble and The Wallace Collection. In January 1998, John Hearne was asked to form a new choral society in his local town of Inverurie. Rehearsals began in late February 1998, and the society is now well-established and has given several concerts. John Hearne has been commissioned (by Gordon Forum for the Arts) to write a cantata featuring Inverurie Choral Society and a youth choir, for a performance in the Spring of 2001.

In July 2003, John Hearne was a guest composer at the Victoria International Arts Festival in Gozo, Malta. His choral song The Seagull, based on a folksong from Skye, was featured by the National Youth Choir of Great Britain in their 2003 tour of Australia and Singapore, and was a spectacular success.