About Jonathan Harvey

Jonathan Harvey (born 3 May 1939 in Sutton Coldfield) is a British composer. He studied with Erwin Stein and Hans Keller at St John's College, Cambridge, eventually obtaining a PhD. Early musical influences included Schoenberg, Berg, Messiaen and Britten. While undertaking postgraduate study at Glasgow University, Harvey was a 'cellist in the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Around this time, he became interested in the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen. In 1969 he took up a Harkness Fellowship at Princeton University, where he encountered Milton Babbitt, another strong influence on his music.