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.