Professor Edward Gregson

Edward Gregson (born 1945) is one of Britain's most versatile composers, whose music has been performed, broadcast and recorded worldwide. He studied composition and piano at the Royal Academy of Music from 1963-7, winning five prizes for composition. Since then he has written solely to commission and has written orchestral, chamber, instrumental and choral music, as well as music for the theatre, film and television. Most of his music has been broadcast and much of it is commercially recorded. He has recently completed commissions for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Bournemouth Symphony and the BBC Philharmonic (for whom he wrote his Clarinet Concerto in 1994 - premiered by Michael Collins). In 1999 he completed a major choral/orchestral work entitled The Dance, forever the Dance which was premiered in St Albans Cathedral. His violin concerto, a commission from the Halle orchestra, recently received its premiere at the Bridgewater Hall with soloist Lyn Fletcher, conducted by Kent Nagano.

His music for the theatre includes commissions from the Royal Shakespeare Company -The Plantagenets trilogy (1988) and Henry IV parts 1 and 2 (1990) - and the York Cycle of Mystery Plays. In 1988 he was nominated for an Ivor Novello award for his title music for BBC Television's Young Musician of the Year programmes, for which he has also regularly officiated as a jury member and broadcaster. He was Chairman of the Association of Professional Composers from 1989-91 and has represented British composers' interests internationally. He is also a member of the Government's Music Industry Forum.

Edward Gregson has been Principal of the Royal Northern College of Music since 1996.