biography
| name: |
Birtwistle, Sir Harrison
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1934– )
|
| biography:
| Composer, born in Accrington, Lancashire, NW England, UK. He studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music in London. While in Manchester he formed with other young musicians the New Manchester Group for the performance of modern music. In 1967 he formed the Pierrot Players with Peter Maxwell Davies; much of his work being written for them and for the English Opera Group. In 1975 he was appointed musical director of the National Theatre, and in 1993 became composer in residence to the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the South Bank Centre. Two works of 1965, the instrumental Tragoedia and vocal/instrumental Ring a Dumb Carillon, established him as a leading composer. Among his later works are the operas Punch and Judy (1966–7), The Masque of Orpheus (1973–84), Gawain (1990), and The Second Mrs Kong (1994). Other works include The Fields of Sorrow (1971), Pulse Sampler (1981), Panic (1995), and The Woman and the Hare (1999). He was knighted in 1988 and made a Companion of Honour in 2001. |
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