John Ramsay Music

John Ramsay was a professor of geology by profession but also a very serious composer, of both chamber and orchestral works. His style was chiefly tonal though he did utilise serial techniques on occasion. The four string quartets are perfect examples of the best of ‘post-modernist’ music, employing no artificial boundaries, but being pure self expression using the most appropriate musical forms. They are to some degree programmatic and thus Romantic in idiom too and thoroughly deserve a place in the chamber music repertoire. John Ramsay had lived in France for many years before his passing on January 11, 2021.