Musicians - John Porcaro

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	Musicians - John Porcaro

John Patrick Joseph Porcaro (born John Joseph Porcaro), also known by the pseudonym John St. Patrick, is a Catholic composer and information scientist. Patrick's main work as a composer is typically described as minimalist, a term most minimalist composers, including Patrick, object to. His work is also described as experimental or ambient. He has written musical compositions for a variety of instruments and settings, including tuba and piano duets, music for radios playing scratched cds, computer-generated musical works which require no human performers, and classically-set string quartets. He does musical work exclusively for the Jersey City, NJ based media company, who use them for various media projects. Although his works are exclusive to mutationengine, many of them are available on a free-use copyright license through mutationengine.

Biography

John St. Patrick was born at Columbus Hospital in Newark, NJ. He was brought up as an Evangelical Protestant, the first child of five. He was educated as a homeschooler until he was 15. His main musical influences up until that time were made up exclusively of rock musicians; he cites musicians Kurt Cobain and Trent Reznor, the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and the band The Who as major early musical influences. He finished secondary school at Belleville Public High School in Belleville, NJ in the year 2000. It was during this time that Patrick was introduced to classical music by fellow information scientist and mentor Melissa Anne Timothy Kopecky. They attended many concerts by the NJ Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, and other classical artists and groups. At this time, Patrick was also learning to play instruments; he played timpanis and percussion, viola, the contra bass bugle horn, sousaphone, guitar, and tuba, as well as singing bass in the high school chorus. Patrick was involved in a few failed rock bands, including one with the late John Wilhovsky, great-nephew of the American composer Peter J. Wilhousky, most known for his concert arrangement of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. During his high school years, the bands Dream Theater and Incubus, the album Pet Sounds, and composers Palestrina, Bach, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich were all musical influences. It is also during this time that Patrick wrote Soliloquy for String and Marimba. The themes which appear in that piece are ever-present in Patrick's later work.

Patrick then attended New Jersey City University, originally as a Tuba student. It was during this time that Patrick began privately studying the history of Christianity, which resulted in his conversion to Roman Catholicism. These studies also lead him to the Philosophy and Religion department of the school. He began by taking classes in the department, and was such an outstanding Philosophy student that he was accepted as a Philosophy major in his first semester, although school policy does not allow students to be accepted as majors until their fifth semester. During this time he primarily studied Kantian Ethics and Origen's Theological/Philosophical work. After the events of September 11th, Patrick re-evaluated his studies and decided to leave the overly-conservative NJCU music department to pursue his Philosophy and Religion studies full-time. The composers and musicians he cites as influences at the time include Wesley Willis, John Adams, John Cage, and Terry Riley. Two of his favorite composers from high school, Philip Glass and Steve Reich, also studied Philosophy as undergraduates, which helped calm his feelings about leaving academic musical study. His final encounter with the NJCU music department was at 2002's Young Composer Seminar. Patrick's contribution was a piece titled "McDonald's will make you fat", which consisted of musicians playing the Wesley Willis classic "Rock and Roll Mcdonalds" on CD players. Because the NJCU music students were not exposed to experimental music of this nature during their music studies, most students could not help bursting into laughter during the performance. After that he spent his academic time on Philosophy. He completed his entire undergraduate degree in three years, shorter than the 4/5 years that undergraduate degrees usually take to complete. He was the only graduate from the Philosophy and Religion department that year. His graduating class included fellow composer Brian McGowan.

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