A young composer’s life cut short Walking up the hill from the Calder & Hebble Navigation in West Yorkshire I arrived at the pretty town of Horbury. Once a thriving woollen town and railway waggon building centre on the fringes of the Yorkshire coalfields. Several...
The composer Christopher Ball was born in Wigan on 7th July 1936 (coincidentally he shared his birthday with another distinguished personality of the recorder world: Michala Petri), and died of Alzheimer’s disease on 7th April 2022 at Denville Hall, Northwood, London....
Many of us who watched the funeral service of Queen Elizabeth II on 19 September will have been moved by the thoughtful choice of music old and new. Highlights included new settings by the Master of the Queen’s (now King’s) music, Judith Weir and Scottish composer...
The early years of William Sterndale Bennett On a recent visit to the city of Sheffield – the city of Steel – my attention was struck by an impressive monument in the Cathedral commemorating Sir William Sterndale Bennett which led to some interesting local...
‘He’s due for a serious revival!’ So says Leslie Howard at the end of Leonard Salzedo, a Life Composed in Music, the film Leonard’s daughter Caroline made about her father for his centenary last year. To kick start this, the Leonard Salzedo Society is organising a...
I was deeply saddened to learn that the wonderful composer Marcus Blunt passed away on 21 July after a long illness bravely borne. Marcus has left us with a significant body of well-crafted, considered music that shows him to have a distinctive voice. Deeply inspired...
