by Stewart MasonArguably the most important British post-minimalist composer, Gavin Bryars mixes classical, jazz, and modern influences in his intellectually engaging (yet still emotionally touching) music. Though his style has changed somewhat since his first major piece, 1969's "The Sinking of the Titanic," Bryars has remained a provocative yet accessible composer capable of working in a variety of settings.Born in the small Yorkshire village of Goole, England, in 1943, Bryars' first musical love was jazz. Beginning in 1963, when he was a philosophy student at the University of Sheffield, Bryars played bass with free jazz guitarist Derek Bailey and drummer Tony Oxley in the nonsensically named improvisatory trio Joseph Holbrooke. (An 11-minute excerpt from a 1965 Joseph Holbrooke rehearsal was released on CD in 1999, but the group remains otherwise undocumented.) Joseph Holbrooke broke up in 1966 when Bailey and Oxley moved to London to form the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, and at that point, Bryars abandoned improvisatory music.After a period spent studying in the United States under John Cage, whose theories inspired much of Bryars' early work, Bryars returned to England and became a Fine Arts instructor at Portsmouth College of Art in 1969. While studying with renowned composers Cornelius Cardew and John White, Bryars wrote the original sketch of "The Sinking of the Titanic" to accompany a student art exhibition. Bryars originally thought of the piece as a musical equivalent of conceptual art and did not originally intend for the piece to be performed. It wasn't until 1972 that Bryars wrote the first performance score for the piece, and he revised the piece in 1975, 1990, and 1994.Bryars wrote his second major piece in 1971, "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet." Like "The Sinking of the Titanic," "Jesus' Blood" is based on a piece of church music slowly transmogrified, but this piece, based on a tape recording of a London tramp singing the titular hymn, is an additive work that builds slowly into an explosive orchestral climax.