John Mills-Cockell

Mills-Cockell was born in Toronto, Ontario. His mother passed away when he was six months old. His father, whose work often required him to spend extended time overseas, found it necessary to place Mills-Cockell in an orphanage for a time shortly thereafter. Eventually, Mills-Cockell’s father remarried and the family was reunited. Mills-Cockell has two younger brothers.

On 24 August 2016, RVNG Intl. announced the release of Tumblers from the Vault, a remastered collection including Syrinx's entire released repertoire, together with some previously-unreleased tracks, including the audio recording of the CBC Music to See performance of Stringspace. Tumblers from the Vault has been released on 14 October 2016.

In late 2015, all three Intersystems albums were remastered and reissued, together with a 132-page bound booklet containing photos, essays, and reproductions of vintage press coverage, on Italian label Alga Marghen, to widespread acclaim.

In 2004, Mills-Cockell released on CD his seven-movement Concerto of Deliverance, an "extended tone poem with words," with libretto by Blake Parker.

In 1989, he was awarded the ProCan award for "Outstanding Contribution to Music for Film".

In 1981, his score for Terror Train received a Genie Award nomination for Best Music Score.

His 1978 score for The Newcomers: The Italians received the CFTA award for Best Musical Score.

Mills-Cockell has composed scores for such feature films as The Clown Murders (1976), Deadly Harvest (1977), Terror Train (1980), Humongous (1982), and Striker's Mountain (1985).

The group disbanded in 1972 as Mills-Cockell, Wells, and Pringle went on to pursue other projects.

The first album also resulted in a 1971 commission, from the respected Toronto Repertory Orchestra, of Stringspace, which Mills-Cockell composed for Syrinx, the TRO, and additional percussion. Stringspace is a 26-minute composition in four movements: December Angel, Syren, Ibisitx, and Field Hymn (Epilogue). Stringspace was performed live by Syrinx and the TRO, conducted by Milton Barnes, and broadcast on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s program Music to See in 1971.

His next major visible milestone came in 1970, when, together with percussionist Alan Wells and saxophonist Doug Pringle, Mills-Cockell formed Syrinx, a progressive music trio whose body of work incorporated elements of electronica, classical and world music, and psychedelic rock. Syrinx played the Toronto coffee-house circuit. After a time, Canadian music executive and talent manager Bernie Finkelstein signed the trio to his newly created True North Records.

After the dissolution of Intersystems in 1968, Mills-Cockell continued to compose, working with a number of other established musicians, including Anne Murray, Bruce Cockburn, and Murray McLauchlan.

In Toronto in the fall of 1967, Mills-Cockell joined forces with light sculptor Michael Hayden, poet Blake Parker, and architect Dik Zander to form Intersystems, an arts collective and multimedia performance group. Intersystems’ multimedia presentations were a classification-defying juxtaposition of Mills-Cockell’s music, Hayden’s light shows, Parker’s spoken-word poetry readings, with Zander’s engineering skills underlying the construction of the presentations.

In 1966, his Fragments for Orchestra, Study for Bassoon, Prepared Piano and Magnetic Tape won a BMI Student Composers’ Award.

He studied piano under John Coveart, and composition under Dr. Samuel Dolin, at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto from 1964 to 1968, where he also taught electronic music.

Mills-Cockell studied music at the University of Toronto from 1963 to 1967.

John Mills-Cockell was born on May 19, 1943 in Toronto, Canada.