Composer: Patric Standford
Patric Standford, born in 1939 in Yorkshire, studied at the Guildhall School of Music with Edmund Rubbra and Raymond Jones, played the violin and viola in the orchestras and learned conducting with Lawrence Leonard and Norman del Mar. He won the 1964 Mendelssohn Scholarship and extended his studies, first with a year in Italy with Gianfrancesco Malipiero and then in Poland with Witold Lutosławski. After gaining a Masters degree at London University, he became involved in commercial music writing and arranging for films, television and West End shows. During this time he made several recordings as a conductor of light music, created an album Autumn Grass for the exploratory instrumental pop group Continuum, and ghost wrote and directed ‘classical’ style pieces for, among others, Rod McKuen.
During the 1970s he established himself as a concert composer with his 1st Symphony (The Seasons) which was awarded the Premio Cittá di Trieste, a Cello Concerto (a homage to Brahms written whilst ‘composer in residence’ at the Brahms summer house in Baden-Baden), and significantly the oratorio Christus Requiem, first heard in St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, and which subsequently attracted wide critical acclaim, including the Yugoslavian Government Arts Award after a performance in Skopje.
His 3rd Symphony (Toward Paradise) was awarded the 1985 City of Geneva Ernest Ansermet Prize and first performed there by the Suisse Romande Orchestra. In 1997 he received the First International Composers’ Award of Budapest for his choral masque The Prayer of Saint Francis, and two years later he was awarded the first prize of the Belgian International ClarinetFest for his Clarinet Quintet, adding to a lively and extensive chamber music output. Symphony No 5 was commissioned for the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra in 1986. His choral works have attracted many European performances, and he became a frequent visitor to France, Finland, Hungary, Estonia, Venezuela and New Zealand as a jury member for international choral and contemporary music festivals, and as a lecturer and conductor.
Standford taught composition and orchestration at the Guildhall School of Music until 1980 when he was appointed Head of Music at the Leeds University College at Bretton Hall, and later joined the composition faculty at Huddersfield University. His book Projects: a course in musical composition was published by Stainer & Bell in 1991. He has played a major role with many organisations: chairman of the Composers’ Guild of Great Britain (1977-1980) and chairman of the British Music Information Centre (1980-1993). He is a council member of the Musicians’ Benevolent Fund, a past board member of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (1983-1996) and currently chairman of the Hinrichsen Foundation. He has a reputation as an entertaining lecturer and occasional radio broadcaster, and is an active writer, music critic and journalist, occasionally also visiting universities and conservatories in Europe and USA as a conductor, and to direct composition seminars and workshops.
Recent CDs of his music include the Ballet Suite Celestial Fireon ASV (Light Music Discoveries 3) and A Christmas CarolSymphony on Naxos 8.557099.
Soundclips
Patric Standford: Christmas Carol Symphony
| 
Listen to Excerpt 1
| Listen to Excerpt 2
| Listen to Excerpt 3
| Listen to Excerpt 4
| About the Composer | Make Enquiry |
