Robert Saxton - Biography

Robert Saxton (born 1953 in London) is a British composer.

Biography

After early advice and encouragement from Benjamin Britten, Robert Saxton took private composition lessons with Elisabeth Lutyens. He went on to study with Robin Holloway at Cambridge University, with Robert Sherlaw Johnson as a post-graduate at Oxford University, and later with Berio. His music is intellectual and complex, texturally intricate, yet earthy and immediate. It draws on many influences including the English visionary tradition and his own Jewish heritage. Saxton is also a distinguished teacher; he has been Head of Composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Royal Academy of Music and is currently a Lecturer, Fellow and Tutor in Music at Worcester College, Oxford. He is married to soprano Teresa Cahill.

He has written commissioned works for: the LSO, the Fires of London, the London Sinfonietta, the LPO, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Nash Ensemble, BBC (Radio, TV and the Proms), the Cheltenham, Aldeburgh, Harrogate and Lichfield festivals and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival/Opera North and the Chilingirian String Quartet. He has also written works for: Mstislav Rostropovich, Teresa Cahill, Steven Isserlis, Leon Fleisher, Paul Silverthorne and John Wallace. His music has been recorded by: Collins Classics, EMI, Sony Classical, Hyperion and NMC. [1]

Recent works include Ring Time (1994), A Yardstick to the Stars (1995), Canticum Luminis (1995), Music for St Catharine for organ (1998), a sonata for solo cello (2000) and Five Motets (2003).

Career highlights

• 1975 — first prize at Gaudeamus Music Week in Holland for What Does the Song Hope For?.
• 1977 — premiere of Echoes of the Glass Bead Game at Wigmore Hall, London.
• 1986 — Fulbright Fellowship at Princeton University.
• 1991 — premiere of Caritas by Opera North at Wakefield Opera House, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.
• 1993 — Mstislav Rostropovich and the London Symphony Orchestra premiere Concerto for Cello and Orchestra.
• 1997 — Prayer before Sleep premiered at the Barbican, London.

Works

• Processions and Dances (1981; large chamber ensemble)
• The Ring of Eternity (1983, orchestra)
• Concerto for Orchestra (1984)
• The Sentinel of the Rainbow (1984; chamber ensemble)
• Chamber Symphony: The Circles of Light (1985–6)
• Viola Concerto (1986)
• Violin Concerto (1989)
• Caritas (1991; opera)
• Invocation, Dance and Meditation (1991, viola, piano)
• Cello Concerto (1993)
• Songs, Dances and Ellipses (1997, string quartet)
• Five Motets (2003, choir)
• The Wandering Jew (2010, radio opera)
• Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis (2010, choir)

Selected recordings

• link Caritas; Music to Celebrate the Resurrection of Christ; I Will Awake the Dawn; In the Beginning; Violin Concerto — NMC-Ancora NMC D102
• Chacony — Sony Classical SK48081
• Concerto for Orchestra; The Ring of Eternity; The Sentinel of the Rainbow; Chamber Symphony:The Circles of Light — EMI Classics CDM5665302

Publications

• Saxton, Robert: The Process of Composition from Detection to Confection in Thomas, W. (ed.), Composition - Performance - Reception: Studies in the Creative Process in Music, Ashgate, 1998, ISBN 1 85928 325 X

See also

• The Clerks

External links

• Home page
• Robert Saxton's home page at Chester Music
• Interview