Composers
Edward Gregson
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Born: 1945
Edward Gregson (born 1945) is a composer of international standing, whose music has been performed, broadcast, and recorded world-wide. He studied composition and piano at the Royal Academy of Music from 1963-7, winning five prizes for composition. Since then he has worked solely to commission and has written orchestral, chamber, instrumental and choral music, as well as music for the theatre, film, and television.
In recent years he has completed orchestral commissions for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Bournemouth Symphony, the Hallé and the BBC Philharmonic orchestras. His music has also been performed by many other orchestras and ensembles worldwide, including in the UK: the London Symphony Orchestra and all the BBC orchestras; in the USA: Detroit, Louisville and Albany (New York); in the Far East: Tokyo Philharmonic and China National Broadcasting Orchestra; and in Europe: orchestras in France, Germany, Holland, Luxemburg, and Scandinavia.
His major orchestral works include Music for Chamber Orchestra (1968), Metamorphoses (1979), Contrasts – a concerto for orchestra (1983), Blazon (1991) and concertos for tuba (1976), trumpet (1983), clarinet (1994), piano (1997),violin (2000), saxophone (2006) and cello (2007). His choral and vocal music includes a song cycle, Five Songs of Innocence and Experience (1980), Missa Brevis Pacem (1985) and a choral symphony The Dance, forever the Dance (1999), for mezzo soprano, choir and orchestra. His instrumental music includes an oboe sonata 1965), a piano sonata (1983), Six Little Pieces for Piano (1985), two brass quintets (1967 and 1985), as well as music for other instruments.
His music for the theatre includes commissions from the York Festival (York Cycle of Mystery Plays) and the Royal Shakespeare Company. He has made a major contribution to the repertoire of brass and wind bands and ensembles including for brass: Connotations (1977), Dances and Arias (1984), Of Men and Mountains (1991), The Trumpets of the Angels (2000) and Rococo Variation (2008); and for wind: Festivo (1985), Celebration (1990), The Sword and the Crown (1996), Concerto for Piano and Wind (1997), and The Kings Go Forth (1998).
In 1988 he was nominated for an Ivor Novello award for his title music to BBC Television’s Young Musician of the Year programmes, for which he also regularly officiated as a jury member and broadcaster. A major retrospective of his music was held in Manchester in 2002 which coincided with the release of a CD of his orchestral music (including the clarinet and violin concertos) on the Chandos label. This disc, with the BBC Philharmonic under Martyn Brabbins, received wide critical acclaim, and in 2008 another CD of his concertos (those for trumpet, piano, and saxophone) was released on the same label. A third volume of his concertos, including his recent cello concerto, was recorded in March 2010 and released the same year.
Edward Gregson was Principal of the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester from 1996-2008, when he retired from academic life to concentrate on his composition. He continues to sit on a number of Boards relating to music education and the music industry.
Music by Edward Gregson is published by Novello & Co © Novello & Co, 2009
For a shortened biography, please email: promotion@musicsales.co.uk
External Websites
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