• Ballet
Les Jours (1968-69), ballet—large orchestra (30’)

• Opera
The Prisoners Play (1972-73), chamber opera (55’)
Reorchestration (1992-1995): “Wozzeck” by Alban Berg, 21 musicians (100’)

• Music-Theatre (and aspects thereof)
Com-possession (1980), violin, viola, cello, guitar, bowed guitar, optional tape or off-stage part (19’)
Médiator (...pincer la musique aujourd’hui...) (1981), chamber ensemble with soloist (15’)
Les Blues d’Orphée (1981), flute, clarinet, viola, cello, piano (11’)
Le Petit Livre des Ravalet (1983), early music instruments, tape and four narrators; (“opéra parlé”, text: Joseph Mignolet (b. 1935)) (40’)
Offenes Lied (1986), melodrama for two sopranos and clarinet (8’)
Une Fleur du mal (1992), melodrama for soprano, clarinet, cello, percussion (after Poe, Baudelaire and Sappho) (22’)
Alma & Oskar (1994), melodrama for voice and piano (after A. Mahler and O. Kokoschka) (9’)
Bettina (1999), melodrama for voice and piano (after Goethe) (7’)
Sacrée Landowska (2000), théatre musical, pour claveciniste/actrice, 7 musiciens, chef d’orchestre (obbligato) (30’)

• Incidental Music
(1997): “Les trois derniers jours de Fernando Pessoa” d’Antonio Tabucchi, Théâtre UBU (Montréal), Denis Marleau, stage and artistic director (22’)
(1999): “Urfaust — tragédie subjective” d’après Goethe et Pessoa, Théâtre UBU (35’)
(2001): “Catoblépas” de Gaëtan Soucy, Théâtre UBU (10’)

Litaneia (1984), mixed choir and orchestra (after Aristophanes) (20’)
Great Stones (1997), chamber choir (11’)
Music, according to Aquinas (2000), chamber choir, two clarinets and cello (after Thomas Aquinas) (9’)

Hommage à Vasarely (1977), medium orchestra (13’)
Vanishing Points (1983), orchestra (13’)
Over Time (1987), large orchestra (9’)
Time and Again (1987), orchestra (12’)
Zefiro torna (1994), orchestra (11’)
La Symphonie du Millénaire (1999-2000), composer for I Musici de Montréal, participation with 18 other composers (95’)

• chamber orchestra (10 or more players)
Piece for chamber orchestra, (1967 rev. 1971), (6’)
Treppenmusik (1982), four saxophones, four clarinets, four strings, tape delay system and four- channel playback (16’)
La capra che suona (1985), ten saxophones (9’)
Brass Communicants (1987), fanfare for twelve brass and four percussion (4’)
Lièger Métal (1988), chamber orchestra (6’)
Kubla Khan: dirge-refrains (1989), chamber orchestra (14’)
Débâcle (1992), chamber orchestra (8’)
Einer nach dem Andern! (1994), chamber orchestra (12’)
J’ignore si j'étais un homme rêvant alors que j'étais un papillon, ou si je suis à présent un papillon rêvant que je suis un homme (2001), 27 players with Disklavier (obbligato) (30’)

• duos — nonettes
Reception and Offering Music (1975), woodwind quintet and percussion (16’)
...wings of silence... (1978), chamber ensemble and tape (18’)
La Dernière Sirène (1981), ondes Martenot, piano, percussion (13’)
Spin (1984), string quartet and piano (to accompany two light-kinetic works by Peter Sedgley (b. 1930)) (10’)
Glide Reflexions (1984), deux clarinettes, deux violoncelles (12 ‘)
Les Raisons des Forces Mouvantes (1984), string quartet and flute (13’)
Some Time Later (1986), electronic string quartet (RAAD instruments) (13’)
Big Apple Jam (1987-1991), saxophone quartet and MIDI-tape (13’)
Objets Perdus (1991), string quartet (18’)
Canto di Beatrice (1992), two sopranos and two cellos (after Dante) (13’)
... a rolling stone! (1993), flute, oboe, clarinet, violin, cello (9’)
Plus que la plus que lente (1996), alto saxophone (improviser), flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, percussion, conductor obbligato (11’)
Etudes multiples (1997), woodwind quintet and piano (14’)
Lautari (1999-2000), trio pour violon, violoncelle, et piano (10’)
Submergé (2002), hautbois et piano (12’)

Anaphora II (1971), piano solo (6’)
Portrait of a Man in Elysian Fields “Hommage à Morton Feldman” (1989), piano solo (4’)
Las Meninas (1990-91), piano solo, twenty-one transformal variations on “Kinderszenen” by Robert Schumann (30’)

Orchestration (1986): “Pulau Dewata” by Claude Vivier, 13 instruments (13’)
Reorchestration (1992-1995): “Wozzeck” by Alban Berg, 21 musicians (100’)
Orchestration (1996): “Alma & Oskar” for mezzo-soprano, tenor and orchestra (9’)
Reorchestration (1999) : “O Magnum Mysterium—In Memoriam Glenn Gould” (1982) by Alexina Louie, 34 solo strings (14’)
Orchestration (2001): “Alma & Oskar” for soprano, baritone and small orchestra (9’);
Orchestration (2002): “Sieben frühe Lieder”, by Gustav Mahler, voice(s) and 15 instruments (25’)

Las Meninas, variations transformelles sur les “Kinderszenen” de Robert Schumann, piano solo, Éditions Musigraphe (Montréal, 1991)

Offenes Lied, deux sopranos et clarinette, Éditions Doberman-Yppan (Québec, 1992)

Wozzeck von Alban Berg (Oper in drei Akten nach Georg Büchner), Fassung für kleines Orchester von John Rea (1995), Partitur UE 31 093, (1999), Universal Edition (Vienna), 562 pages.

Pauline Oliveros: an Interview, Parachute — revue d’art contemporain, (Montréal, no. 34, 1984), pp. 33-39.

A Root Awakening: some sense and value in transcultural music, Vice Versa, (Montréal, no. 25, 1988), pp. 8-10; expanded version published in The Fifth Stream (CanMus Documents, no. 6), (Toronto, 1991), pp. 13-20.


Reflets dans l’eau bénite (douze images impures : la vie et la musique de Claude Vivier), Circuit, (Montréal, vol. 1, no. 2, 1991), pp. 71-79.

La Liberté guidant le peuple: Pierre Boulez, Circuit, (vol. 3, no. 1, 1992), pp. 49-50.

Analyse de Las Meninas de John Rea, Les Cahiers de L’ARMuQ, (Montréal, no. 15, 1994), pp. 27-31.

Postmodernité « que me veux-tu », Circuit, (vol. 8, no. 1, 1997), pp. 55-69.

Portrait du compositeur en jeune poète : Compte rendu de Mallarmé and Boulez: a study in poetic influence by Mary Breatnach, Circuit, (vol. 9, no. 1, 1998), pp. 41-46.

Gradus ad Infernum : Entrevue avec Ferdinand Larven Niemantz « penseur de la musique » et auteur de Musical Compositions of the Century, Circuit, (vol. 9, no. 2, 1998), pp.9-23.

Nashville ou Darmstadt : Le masque mortuaire de la postmodernité, Circuit, (vol. 9, no. 2, 1998), pp. 61-73.

L’artiste et ses masques, Présences de la musique québécoise, (Montréal, 1999), pp. 75-78

Le quatour à cordes est une forme tabou, un fossile et il n’appartient plus à une tradition vivante, Circuit, (vol. 11, no. 2, 2000), pp. 63-66.

Postmodernismo, Il, article (10,000 words) in Enciclopedia della Musica, Giulio Einaudi Editore (2001, Turin, Italy) volume one “Il Novecento/20th Century”, pp. 1207-1237.

« Ite, Symphonia est. » Apostille au nom de la collectivité musico-religieuse, Circuit, (vol. 11, no. 3, 2001), pp. 21-31.

Encyclopedia of Music in Canada. Edited by Helmut Kallmann, Gilles Potvin. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993. Article, “Rea, John.”

Cohen, Laurence. “An encounter with John Rea, musician”, Vice Versa [English translation published in Toronto of this Montreal-based periodical], May-June, 1985, pp. 4-5.

Summer Gardeners: Conversations with Composers. Edited by Kevin Volans. Durban: Newer Music Edition, 1985. Interview of John Rea and Jose Evangelista, pp. 156-161.

Bosseur, Dominique and Jean-Yves. Revolutions musicales: la musique contemporaine depuis 1945. Paris: Minerve, 1986. 293 p. Brief discussion of John Rea’s works that have been inspired by the visual arts.

“Fanfares”, court métrage (35‘) réalisé en 1994 par Rhombus Media (Toronto) et l’Office National du Film (Montréal) ; portrait de John Rea avec cinq autres compositeurs montréalais.

Ferguson, Sean. “Alban Berg, Wozzeck: A New Chamber Version by John Rea.” Musicworks (vol. 64, Printemps, 1996), 52-54.

Bauer, V., Lacasse, S., Villemarie, R.. “Analyse d’une œuvre hypertextuelle : Las Meninas, vingt et une variations transformelles sur les Kinderszenen de Robert Schumann, de John Rea.” Les Cahiers de l’ARMuQ (numéro 17, juin 1996), 35-44.

Gonneville, Michel. “Le charme étrange des espaces familiers. Périple analytique dans Treppenmusik de John Rea.” Circuit (vol. 11, No. 1, 2000), 9-32.

revised/ mise à jour, VII-2002