In 1979, with his colleague Richard Emsley, Clarke co-founded the new musicensemble, Suoraan, "a small band of outstanding specialist performers" based in London "which dedicatedly promoted the music of, centrally, Iannis Xenakis but also younger British and European composers such as Michael Finnissy and James Dillon." Yet, as Christopher Fox points out, "for much of his career work has attracted most attention beyond the British Isles, including significant performances at the International Gaudeamus Music Week and the ISCM World Music Days." Fox relates further: According to his official biography, Clarke has been "a visiting professor at universities in various countries, including Azerbaijan, where he was appointed an honorary Professor of Music at the Baku Music Academy; Russia, at the Moscow Conservatoire and Sweden, at the University of Malmö." In addition, he "has led composition courses at the Time of Music Festival in Viitasaari, Finland, where he was featured composer in 2000, and at the Festival junger Künstler Bayreuth." He was also "a featured composer at the 2004 Ars Musica festival in Brussels, where ten works were performed in the largest survey of Clarke’s music to date ."
Works
;"Over ninety works for symphony orchestra, ensembles, voices or solo musicians", including:
"Landschaft mit Glockenturm II", for seventeen European and Chinese instruments, commissioned by the Viennese organisation Asian Culture Link.
;Collaboration with Harold Pinter commissioned by the BBC:
Voices, "a large-scale work for nine actors, solo musicians and orchestra, with a text specially written by Harold Pinter," first broadcast on BBC Radio 3, in honor of Pinter's 75th birthday, on 10 October 2005.
Trio Fibonacci - Independence Quadrilles from NMC Recordings. NMC D107.
Critical reception
Describing his "String Quartet" commissioned for the Arditti Quartet, The Globe and Mail states: "James Clarke's 'String Quartet' was obsessive chiefly in its manner, which was that of someone determined to break through to a new sound, a new feeling, a new zone in the psyche. The piece seethed and glittered, bursting from silence with pungent tutti respirations, arraying its speedy surface melodies like broken glass. It was rock music by other means...." Concerning the same work, The Toronto Star observes: "The music pulsed with fabulous rhythmic and tonal effects that the Ardittis shaped into palpable 3-D soundscapes. Clarke's mastery of dissonance and overtone, aided by the Ardittis' playing, created sound waves that are not usually heard in a quartet program."
