100 Notable alumni of
Royal College of Music
Updated:
The Royal College of Music is 258th in the world, 88th in Europe, and 18th in the United Kingdom by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 100 notable alumni from the Royal College of Music sorted by their wiki pages popularity. The directory includes famous graduates and former students along with research and academic staff.
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Mika
- Occupations
- singerpolyglotsinger-songwriterpianistsongwriter
- Biography
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Michael Holbrook Penniman Jr., known professionally as Mika, is a singer-songwriter born in Beirut, Lebanon, and raised in Paris and London. Mika rose to prominence after the release of his first extended play, Dodgy Holiday. His debut single "Relax, Take It Easy", was released in October 2006, and topped the charts throughout Europe. His first full-length studio album, Life in Cartoon Motion, was released on Island Records in February 2007. It sold more than 8 million copies worldwide, and helped Mika win a Brit Award in 2008 for Best British Breakthrough act, and was nominated for a Grammy Award. He topped the UK Singles Chart for five weeks starting in January 2007 with "Grace Kelly", which became the third best-selling song in the country that year.
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Andrew Lloyd Webber
- Occupations
- politiciantheatrical directorproducercomposerbusinessperson
- Biography
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Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer and impresario of musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 21 musicals, a song cycle, a set of variations, two film scores, and a Latin Requiem Mass.
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Sarah Brightman
- Occupations
- stage actoropera singersinger-songwriteractorfilm actor
- Biography
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Sarah Brightman is an English classical crossover soprano singer and actress.
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James Horner
- Occupations
- composerconductorfilm score composerorchestrator
- Biography
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James Roy Horner was an American composer and conductor. He worked on more than 160 film and television productions between 1978 and 2015. He was known for the integration of choral and electronic elements alongside traditional orchestrations, and for his use of motifs associated with Celtic music.
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Lang Lang
- Occupations
- classical pianist
- Biography
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Lang Lang is a Chinese classical pianist. He has performed with major orchestras around the world and appeared at many leading concert halls. Active since the 1990s, he was the first Chinese pianist to be engaged by the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic and many of the top American orchestras. In 2000, a Chicago Tribune music critic called him "the biggest, most exciting young keyboard talent I have encountered in many a year of attending piano recitals."
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Rick Wakeman
- Occupations
- pianisttelevision presentercomposerkeyboardistfilm score composer
- Biography
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Richard Christopher Wakeman is an English keyboardist and composer best known as a member of the progressive rock band Yes across five tenures between 1971 and 2004, and for his prolific solo career. AllMusic describes Wakeman as a "classically trained keyboardist extraordinaire who plied his trade with Yes and developed his own brand of live spectacular in a solo act."
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Pedro Pablo Kuczynski
- Occupations
- bankereconomistpolitician
- Biography
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Pedro Pablo Kuczynski Godard, also known simply as PPK ( Spanish: [pepeˈka]), is a Peruvian economist, public administrator, and former politician who served as the president of Peru from 2016 to 2018. He served as prime minister of Peru and as minister of economy and finance during the presidency of Alejandro Toledo. Kuczynski resigned from the presidency on 23 March 2018, following a successful impeachment vote and days before a probable conviction vote. Since 10 April 2019 he has been in pretrial detention, due to an ongoing investigation on corruption, money laundering, and connections to Odebrecht, a public works company accused of paying bribes.
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Benjamin Britten
- Occupations
- conductorpoliticianpianistcomposerchoreographer
- Biography
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Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera Peter Grimes (1945), the War Requiem (1962) and the orchestral showpiece The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1945).
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Gustav Holst
- Occupations
- librettistmusic teachercomposer
- Biography
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Gustav Holst was an English composer, arranger and teacher. Best known for his orchestral suite The Planets, he composed many other works across a range of genres, although none achieved comparable success. His distinctive compositional style was the product of many influences, Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss being most crucial early in his development. The subsequent inspiration of the English folksong revival of the early 20th century, and the example of such rising modern composers as Maurice Ravel, led Holst to develop and refine an individual style.
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Vanessa-Mae
- Occupations
- violinistcomposeralpine skier
- Biography
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Vanessa-Mae, also called Vanessa-Mae Vanakorn Nicholson, is a Singaporean-born British violinist and skier with Thai heritage from her father. Her album sales reached several million by 2006, making her the wealthiest entertainer aged under 30 in the United Kingdom at that time. She is known for fusing classical and popular genres, which she calls "violin techno-acoustic fusion". This crossover style combines her classical violin training with electronic music influences like techno and synth-pop, as seen for example in the title track from her album Storm from 1997.
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Ralph Vaughan Williams
- Occupations
- pedagoguecomposerclassical composerconductororganist
- Biography
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Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over sixty years. Strongly influenced by Tudor music and English folk-song, his output marked a decisive break in British music from its German-dominated style of the 19th century.
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Alfie Boe
- Occupations
- stage actorrecording artistopera singer
- Biography
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Alfred Giovanni Roncalli Boe is an English actor and singer who performs primarily in musical theatre.
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Leopold Stokowski
- Occupations
- conductororganistcomposer
- Biography
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Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British conductor. One of the leading conductors of the early and mid-20th century, he is best known for his long association with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He was especially noted for his free-hand conducting style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristic sound from the orchestras he directed.
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John Williams
- Occupations
- music educatorguitaristcomposerclassical guitaristperforming artist
- Biography
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John Christopher Williams AO OBE is an Australian-born classical guitarist renowned for his ensemble playing as well as his interpretation and promotion of the modern classical guitar repertoire. In 1973, he shared a Grammy Award in the Best Chamber Music Performance category with fellow guitarist Julian Bream for Together (released in the US as Julian and John (Works by Lawes, Carulli, Albéniz, Granados)). Guitar historian Graham Wade has said that "John is perhaps the most technically accomplished guitarist the world has seen."
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Joan Sutherland
- Occupations
- opera singer
- Biography
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Dame Joan Alston Sutherland was an Australian dramatic coloratura soprano known for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s to the 1980s.
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Claire van Kampen
- Occupations
- music directorpianisttheatrical directorplaywrightcomposer
- Biography
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Claire Louise van Kampen, Lady Rylance was an English director, composer, and playwright. She was the founding director of music at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre from 1997 to 2015, first as assistant to her husband, actor and director Mark Rylance, then with his successor, Dominic Dromgoole, often creating "period" music for Shakespeare's plays. Van Kampen composed music for productions in both London's West End theatres and on New York City's Broadway which often starred her husband, covering a wide range of repertoire from Helen by Euripides to contemporary plays such as Nice Fish. She also worked as musical director and stage director for some of them. She ventured into composing music for a film, Nights and Days, advising and arranging music for the Wolf Hall television series of the BBC, and composing a ballet for the New York Theatre Ballet. She wrote a play, Farinelli and the King, which was successfully performed both in London and on Broadway.
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Gareth Malone
- Occupations
- conductortelevision presenterchoir directormusician
- Biography
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Gareth Edmund Malone OBE is an English choirmaster and broadcaster, self-described as an "animateur, presenter and populariser of choral singing". He is best known for his television appearances in programmes such as The Choir, which focus on singing and introducing choral music to new participants. Malone was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours, for services to music.
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Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
- Occupations
- pianistconductorcomposer
- Biography
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Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was a British composer and conductor. He was particularly known for his three cantatas on the epic 1855 poem The Song of Hiawatha by American Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Coleridge-Taylor premiered the first section in 1898, when he was 23. Of mixed-race descent, Coleridge-Taylor achieved such success that he was referred to by white musicians in New York City as the "African Mahler" when he had three tours of the United States in the early 1900s. He married an Englishwoman, Jessie Walmisley, and both their children had musical careers. Their son, Hiawatha, adapted his father's music for a variety of performances. Their daughter, Avril Coleridge-Taylor, became a composer and conductor.
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James Galway
- Occupations
- conductorconcert flutistclassical flautist
- Biography
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Sir James Galway OBE is an Irish virtuoso flute player from Belfast, nicknamed "The Man with the Golden Flute". After several years working as an orchestral musician, he established an international career as a solo flute player. In 2005, he received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music at the Classic Brit Awards.
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Marion Stein
- Occupations
- pianistaristocratmusician
- Biography
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Maria Donata Nanetta Paulina Gustava Erwina Wilhelmine Stein, known as Marion Stein, was an Austrian-born British concert pianist. During her marriage to George Lascelles, Earl of Harewood, she was known as Marion Lascelles, Countess of Harewood and was a member of the extended British royal family. After her divorce and subsequent remarriage to British politician Jeremy Thorpe, leader of the Liberal Party from 1967 to 1976, she became known as Marion Thorpe.
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Julian Lloyd Webber
- Occupations
- choreographercomposerperforming artistcellistmusician
- Biography
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Julian Lloyd Webber is a British solo cellist, conductor and broadcaster, a former principal of Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and the founder of the In Harmony music education programme.
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Christopher Tin
- Enrolled in the Royal College of Music
- 1999-2000 graduated with Master of Music
- Occupations
- film score composerconductorcomposer
- Biography
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Christopher Chiyan Tin is an American composer of art music, composing for film, television, and video game soundtracks. His work is primarily orchestral and choral, often with a world music influence. He is a two-time Grammy Award winner.
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Julian Bream
- Occupations
- music educatorguitaristcomposerclassical guitaristmusician
- Biography
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Julian Alexander Bream CBE was an English classical guitarist and lutenist. Regarded as one of the most distinguished classical guitarists of the 20th century, he played a significant role in improving the public perception of the classical guitar as a respectable instrument. Over the course of a career that spanned more than half a century, Bream also helped revive interest in the lute.
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Malcolm Arnold
- Occupations
- conductorfilm score composercomposerclassical composerjazz musician
- Biography
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Sir Malcolm Henry Arnold CBE was an English composer and conductor. His works feature music in many genres, including a cycle of nine symphonies, numerous concertos, concert works, chamber music, choral music and music for brass band and wind band. His style is tonal and rejoices in lively rhythms, brilliant orchestration, and an unabashed tunefulness. He wrote extensively for the theatre, with five ballets specially commissioned by the Royal Ballet, as well as two operas and a musical. He also produced scores for more than a hundred films, among these The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), for which he won an Oscar.
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Amanda Aldridge
- Occupations
- music educatorcomposeropera singer
- Biography
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Amanda Christina Elizabeth Aldridge, also known as Amanda Ira Aldridge, was a British opera singer and teacher who composed love songs, suites, sambas, and light orchestral pieces under the pseudonym of Montague Ring.
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Neville Marriner
- Occupations
- composerconductorviolinistmusician
- Biography
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Sir Neville Marriner, CH, CBE was an English conductor and violinist. Described as "one of the world's greatest conductors", Gramophone lists Marriner as one of the 50 greatest conductors and another compilation ranks Marriner #14 of the 18 "Greatest and Most Famous Conductors of All Time". He founded the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and his partnership with them is the most recorded of any orchestra and conductor.
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Michalis Chatzigiannis
- Occupations
- singerrecord producercomposerpianistsongwriter
- Biography
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Michalis Hatzigiannis is a Greek Cypriot singer. He served as the Deputy Minister of Culture for Cyprus under President Christodoulides, from March 1, 2023 until July 11, 2023.
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Clemency Burton-Hill
- Occupations
- actorwriterfilm actorbroadcasterjournalist
- Biography
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Clemency Margaret Greatrex Burton-Hill is an English broadcaster, author, novelist, journalist, and violinist. In her early career she also worked as an actress. In January 2020, she suffered a brain haemorrhage caused by a cerebral arteriovenous malformation and underwent emergency surgery in New York City. She continues to work on her recovery.
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Anna Fedorova
- Occupations
- classical pianist
- Biography
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Anna Borysivna Fedorova is a Ukrainian concert pianist. Fedorova performs as soloist, chamber musician and with symphony orchestras in the major concert halls of the Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy, the UK, Ukraine, Poland, the US, Mexico, Argentina, and parts of Asia. Fedorova is a David Young Piano Prize Holder supported by a Soiree d'Or Award and Keyboard Trust.
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Ola Gjeilo
- Enrolled in the Royal College of Music
- Studied in 2002-2004
- Occupations
- pianistcomposerclassical pianist
- Biography
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Ola Gjeilo is a Norwegian composer and pianist in the United States.
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Peter Pears
- Occupations
- singercomposeropera singer
- Biography
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Sir Peter Neville Luard Pears CBE was an English tenor. His career was closely associated with the composer Benjamin Britten, his personal and professional partner for nearly forty years.
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Barbara Thompson
- Occupations
- composersaxophonistjazz musicianflautist
- Biography
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Barbara Gracey Thompson MBE was an English jazz saxophonist, flautist and composer. She studied clarinet, flute, piano and classical composition at the Royal College of Music, but the music of Duke Ellington and John Coltrane made her shift her interests to jazz and saxophone. She was married to drummer Jon Hiseman of Colosseum from 1967 until his death in 2018.
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Colin Davis
- Occupations
- conductoruniversity teacherengineermusic educatormusic director
- Biography
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Sir Colin Rex Davis CH CBE was an English conductor, known for his association with the London Symphony Orchestra, having first conducted it in 1959. His repertoire was broad, but among the composers with whom he was particularly associated were Mozart, Berlioz, Elgar, Sibelius, Stravinsky and Tippett.
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Andrew Davis
- Occupations
- harpsichordistorganistconductormusic director
- Biography
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Sir Andrew Frank Davis CBE was an English conductor. He was the long-time chief conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. He was music director at the Glyndebourne Festival from 1988 to 2000, and especially known for conducting the traditional Last Night of The Proms, including Last Night speeches. He was music director and principal conductor of the Lyric Opera of Chicago from 2000 to the 2020/21 season.
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Laura Wright
- Occupations
- singer
- Biography
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Laura Kathryn Wright is an English mezzo-soprano. She is a classical-popular crossover singer who performs classical and operatic music, popular songs, musical theatre, and folk songs.
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Rebecca Clarke
- Occupations
- composerviolistmusicologistmusician
- Biography
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Rebecca Helferich Clarke was a British classical composer and violist. Internationally renowned as a viola virtuoso, she also became one of the first female professional orchestral players in London.
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Imogen Holst
- Occupations
- conductorwritermusicologistcomposerbiographer
- Biography
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Imogen Clare Holst CBE was a British composer, arranger, conductor, teacher, musicologist and festival administrator. The only child of the composer Gustav Holst, she is particularly known for her educational work at Dartington Hall in the 1940s, and for her 20 years as joint artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival. In addition to composing music, she wrote composer biographies, much educational material and several books on the life and works of her father.
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David Warburton
- Enrolled in the Royal College of Music
- Graduated with diploma
- Occupations
- musicianpoliticianmusic teachercomposertruck driver
- Biography
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David John Warburton was a British Conservative politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Somerton and Frome from 2015 until 2023.
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Frank Bridge
- Enrolled in the Royal College of Music
- Studied in 1896-1903
- Occupations
- composerviolistconductormusic educator
- Biography
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Frank Bridge was an English composer, violist and conductor.
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Richard Bonynge
- Occupations
- conductorpianist
- Biography
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Richard Alan Bonynge is an Australian conductor and pianist. He is the widower of Australian dramatic coloratura soprano Dame Joan Sutherland. Bonynge conducted virtually all of Sutherland's operatic performances from 1962 until her retirement in 1990.
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John Ireland
- Enrolled in the Royal College of Music
- Studied in 1893
- Occupations
- composerorganistmusic educatorfilm score composer
- Biography
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John Nicholson Ireland was an English composer and teacher of music. The majority of his output consists of piano miniatures and of songs with piano. His best-known works include the short instrumental or orchestral work "The Holy Boy", a setting of the poem "Sea-Fever" by John Masefield, a formerly much-played Piano Concerto, the hymn tune Love Unknown and the choral motet "Greater Love Hath No Man".
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Gwyneth Jones
- Occupations
- opera singer
- Biography
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Dame Gwyneth Jones DBE is a Welsh dramatic soprano, widely regarded as one of the greatest Wagnerian sopranos of the second half of the 20th century. The possessor of a large-scaled, powerful dramatic soprano voice, joined to a vivid stage presence and finely developed acting ability, Jones enjoyed an extensive international career that took her to all the world's major opera houses. Her talent was cultivated through a long relationship with the Bayreuther Festspiele, through which she developed a more human, vulnerable, and womanly image for Richard Wagner's main female characters. She is best known for her rendition of Brünnhilde in the 1976 Jahrhundertring at Bayreuth, staged to commemorate the theater's centenary anniversary.
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George Butterworth
- Occupations
- composermusicologist
- Biography
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George Sainton Kaye Butterworth, MC was an English composer who was best known for the orchestral idyll The Banks of Green Willow and his song settings of A. E. Housman's poems from A Shropshire Lad. He was awarded the Military Cross for his gallantry during the fighting at the Battle of Pozières in the First World War, and died during the Battle of the Somme.
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Trevor Pinnock
- Occupations
- conductorpianistchoir directormusic educatorharpsichordist
- Biography
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Trevor David Pinnock CBE is a British harpsichordist and conductor.
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Hugh McDowell
- Occupations
- musician
- Biography
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Hugh Alexander McDowell was an English cellist and member of the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) and related acts.
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Steve Nieve
- Occupations
- composer
- Biography
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Steve Nieve is an English musician and composer. In a career spanning more than 40 years, Nieve has been a member of Elvis Costello's backing bands the Attractions and the Imposters, as well as Madness. He has also experienced success as a prolific session musician, featured on a wide array of other artists' recordings.
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Roger Norrington
- Occupations
- conductormusician
- Biography
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Sir Roger Arthur Carver Norrington was an English conductor, best known for historically informed performances of baroque, classical, and romantic music, which often entailed minimal use of vibrato and applying historically informed principles to modern orchestras.
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Anna Meredith
- Occupations
- composermusician
- Biography
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Anna Howard Meredith MBE is a Scottish composer and performer of electronic and acoustic music. She is a former composer-in-residence with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and former PRS/RPS Composer in the House with Sinfonia ViVA.
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Philip Sparke
- Occupations
- composerconductortrumpetermusician
- Biography
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Philip Allen Sparke is an English composer and musician born in London, noted for his concert band and brass band music. His early major works include The Land of the Long White Cloud – "Aotearoa", written for the 1980 Centennial New Zealand Brass Band championship. He subsequently went on to win the EBU New Music for Band Competition three times, including in 1986 with a commission from the BBC called Orient Express.
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Eugen d'Albert
- Occupations
- composerpianist
- Biography
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Eugen Francis Charles d'Albert (10 April 1864 – 3 March 1932) was a Scottish-born pianist and composer who immigrated to Germany.
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Sarah Connolly
- Occupations
- opera singer
- Biography
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Dame Sarah Patricia Connolly DBE is an English mezzo-soprano. Although best known for her baroque and classical roles, Connolly has a wide-ranging repertoire which has included works by Wagner as well as various 20th-century composers. She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2010 New Year Honours and a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to music.
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Alina Ibragimova
- Occupations
- classical violinistviolinist
- Biography
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Alina Rinatovna Ibragimova MBE is a Russian-British violinist.
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Arthur Bliss
- Occupations
- choreographerfilm score composercomposer
- Biography
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Sir Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss was British composer and conductor.
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Mark-Anthony Turnage
- Occupations
- musicologistmusic educatorcomposer
- Biography
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Mark-Anthony Turnage is an English composer of contemporary classical music.
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Constant Lambert
- Enrolled in the Royal College of Music
- Studied in 1922-1925
- Occupations
- conductormusic directorfilm score composercomposerjazz musician
- Biography
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Leonard Constant Lambert was a British composer, conductor, and author. He was the founding music director of the Royal Ballet, and (alongside Dame Ninette de Valois and Sir Frederick Ashton) he was a major figure in the establishment of the English ballet as a significant artistic movement.
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Wayne Marshall
- Occupations
- pianistconductororganist
- Biography
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Wayne Ea Marshall OBE is a British pianist, organist, and conductor.
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Lilli Paasikivi
- Occupations
- opera singermusician
- Biography
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Lilli Katriina Paasikivi-Ilves is a Finnish mezzo-soprano and cultural manager. She served as the Artistic Director of the Finnish National Opera from 2013 to 2023 and is currently the Intendant of the Bregenz Festival in Austria.
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Ephraim Amu
- Occupations
- musicologistteachercomposer
- Biography
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Ephraim Kɔku Amu was a Ghanaian composer, musicologist and teacher. He was a mentor to the musicologist J. H. Kwabena Nketia.
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Peter Jonas
- Occupations
- theatre managerintendanttalent manager
- Biography
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Sir John Peter Jonas CBE FRCM FRSA was a British arts administrator and opera company director.
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Julius Drake
- Occupations
- pianistmusic educatormusician
- Biography
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Julius Drake is an English pianist who works as a song recital accompanist and chamber musician.
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Arthur Benjamin
- Occupations
- conductorpianistfilm score composercomposermusic educator
- Biography
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Arthur Leslie Benjamin was an Australian composer, pianist, conductor and teacher. He is best known as the composer of Jamaican Rumba (1938) and of the Storm Clouds Cantata, featured in both versions of the Alfred Hitchcock film The Man who Knew Too Much, in 1934 and 1956.
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Clara Butt
- Occupations
- opera singer
- Biography
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Dame Clara Ellen Butt DBE was an English dramatic contralto and one of the most popular singers from the 1890s through to the 1920s. She had an exceptionally fine contralto voice and an agile singing technique, and impressed contemporary composers such as Saint-Saëns and Elgar; the latter composed his Sea Pictures, Op. 37 with her voice in mind.
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Eileen Joyce
- Occupations
- pianistharpsichordist
- Biography
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Eileen Alannah Joyce CMG was an Australian pianist whose career spanned more than 30 years. She lived in England in her adult years.
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Peter Oundjian
- Occupations
- music educatorconductor
- Biography
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Peter Haig Oundjian is a Canadian violinist and conductor.
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Edmund Rubbra
- Occupations
- pianistmusicologistcomposer
- Biography
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Edmund Rubbra was a British composer. He composed both instrumental and vocal works for soloists, chamber groups and full choruses and orchestras. He was greatly esteemed by fellow musicians and was at the peak of his fame in the mid-20th century. The best known of his pieces are his eleven symphonies. Although he was active at a time when many people wrote twelve-tone music, he decided not to write in this idiom; instead, he devised his own distinctive style. His later works were not as popular with the concert-going public as his previous ones had been, although he never lost the respect of his colleagues. Therefore, his output as a whole is less celebrated today than would have been expected from its early popularity. He was the brother of the engineer Arthur Rubbra.
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Caroline Lavelle
- Occupations
- composersinger-songwritercellistsinger
- Biography
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Caroline Lavelle is an English singer-songwriter and cellist who has created three solo albums and contributed vocals, music, and production help to many other artists and bands.
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Ernest John Moeran
- Occupations
- composermusicologist
- Biography
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Ernest John Smeed Moeran was an Anglo-Irish composer whose work was strongly influenced by English and Irish folk music of which he was an assiduous collector. His oeuvre includes orchestral pieces, concertos, chamber and keyboard works, and a number of choral and song cycles as well as individual songs.
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Elisabeth Lutyens
- Occupations
- composerfilm score composer
- Biography
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Agnes Elisabeth Lutyens, CBE was an English composer.
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Alexander Shelley
- Occupations
- conductor
- Biography
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Alexander Gordon Shelley is an English conductor. He is the music director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, principal associate conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Artistic and Music Director of Artis—Naples and the Naples Philharmonic and artistic and music director of the Pacific Symphony.
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Edward Downes
- Occupations
- conductoroboist
- Biography
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Sir Edward Thomas "Ted" Downes, CBE was an English conductor, specialising in opera.
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Fanny Waterman
- Occupations
- music educatorpianist
- Biography
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Dame Fanny Waterman DBE was a British pianist and academic piano teacher, who is particularly known as the founder, chair and artistic director of the Leeds International Piano Competition. She was also president of the Harrogate International Music Festival.
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Carlos Miranda
- Occupations
- pianistactorcomposer
- Biography
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Luis Carlos Miranda Cordal, also known as Carlos Miranda, is a Spanish composer, pianist, conductor and actor.
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Elin Manahan Thomas
- Occupations
- opera singer
- Biography
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Elin Manahan Thomas is a Welsh soprano. A specialist in Baroque music, she sang at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in May 2018.
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Elizabeth Maconchy
- Occupations
- composer
- Biography
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Dame Elizabeth Violet Maconchy LeFanu DBE was an English-Irish composer. She is considered to be one of the finest composers Great Britain and Ireland have produced.
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Tim Mead
- Occupations
- singerperforming artistopera singer
- Biography
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Tim Mead is an English countertenor.
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Alexander Romanovsky
- Occupations
- pianist
- Biography
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Alexander Alexandrovich Romanovsky is a Ukrainian-born classical pianist resident in Italy. Romanovsky self-identifies as Russian while performing in Russia, and in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories.
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Arnold Dolmetsch
- Occupations
- musical instrument makermusicologistluthierharpsichordistmusic theorist
- Biography
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Eugène Arnold Dolmetsch, was a French-born musician and instrument maker who spent much of his working life in England and established an instrument-making workshop in Haslemere, Surrey. With his family, he was a leading figure in the 20th-century revival of interest in early music.
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Kathryn Stott
- Occupations
- music educatorpianist
- Biography
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Kathryn Stott is an English classical pianist who performs as a concerto soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. Her specialities include the English and French classical repertoire, contemporary classical music and the tango. She is a professor at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester and has organised several music festivals and concert series.
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Charles Wood
- Occupations
- pedagogueteachercomposer
- Biography
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Charles Wood was an Irish composer and teacher; his students included Ralph Vaughan Williams at Cambridge and Herbert Howells at the Royal College of Music. He is primarily remembered and performed as an Anglican church music composer, but he also wrote songs and chamber music, particularly for string quartet.
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Katharine Stewart-Murray, Duchess of Atholl
- Occupations
- civil servantaristocratpolitician
- Biography
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Katharine Marjory Stewart-Murray, Duchess of Atholl, DBE, known as the Marchioness of Tullibardine from 1899 to 1917, was a Scottish noblewoman and Scottish Unionist Party politician. She was the first woman to be elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) in Scotland, despite having campaigned against women's suffrage before it was granted in 1918. She was the first woman to serve in a British Conservative government. She later found herself at odds with her party and resigned the Whip in 1935 over the India Bill. She became strongly anti-fascist in the 1930s and criticised authoritarian regimes in Soviet Russia, Italy and Spain as well as Nazi Germany. She was given the nickname 'Red Duchess' for these views.
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Ivor Bolton
- Occupations
- conductorharpsichordist
- Biography
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Ivor Bolton CBE is an English conductor and harpsichordist.
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Lucy Winkett
- Years
- 1968-.. (age 58)
- Occupations
- precentorAnglican priest
- Biography
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Lucy Clare Winkett is a British Anglican priest, who since 2010 has been the Rector of St James's Church, Piccadilly. Her early ordained ministry was spent at St Paul's Cathedral, London, where she was a minor canon and chaplain from 1997 to 2003, and the canon precentor from 2003 to 2010. She was the first female priest to join the clergy of St Paul's Cathedral.
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Nicholas McCarthy
- Occupations
- pianist
- Biography
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Nicholas McCarthy is a British classical pianist. He was born without a right hand and became the first left-hand-only pianist to graduate from the Royal College of Music in London in its 130-year history.
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Beatrice Harrison
- Occupations
- cellist
- Biography
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Beatrice Harrison was a British cellist active in the first half of the 20th century. She gave first performances of several important English works, especially those of Frederick Delius, and made the first or standard recordings of others, particularly the first recording of Edward Elgar's cello concerto in 1920, with the composer conducting.
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Walford Davies
- Occupations
- university teacherorganistcomposer
- Biography
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Sir Henry Walford Davies KCVO OBE was an English composer, organist, and educator who held the title Master of the King's Music from 1934 until 1941. He served with the Royal Air Force during the First World War, during which he composed the Royal Air Force March Past, and was music adviser to the British Broadcasting Corporation, for whom he gave commended talks on music between 1924 and 1941.
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Cherry Vann
- Occupations
- Anglican bishopArchbishop of Wales
- Biography
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Cherry Elizabeth Vann is a British Anglican bishop serving in the Church in Wales as Archbishop of Wales since 2025 and Bishop of Monmouth since 2020. She is the first woman to be elected as an Anglican archbishop in the United Kingdom and the first openly gay and partnered bishop to serve as a primate in the Anglican Communion. Before joining the Church in Wales, she had spent her entire ordained ministry in the Church of England's Diocese of Manchester and was Archdeacon of Rochdale in the diocese from 2008 to 2020.
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Javier Álvarez
- Occupations
- composeracademic musician
- Biography
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Javier Álvarez Fuentes was a Mexican composer known for compositions that combined a variety of international musical styles and traditions, and that often utilized unusual instruments and new music technologies. Many of his works combine music technology with diverse instruments and influences from around the world. He taught internationally, in the UK and Sweden, and back in Mexico later in his career.
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Peggy Glanville-Hicks
- Occupations
- music criticcomposerjournalist
- Biography
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Peggy Winsome Glanville-Hicks was an Australian composer and music critic.
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Sydney Watson
- Years
- 1903-1991 (aged 88)
- Occupations
- music educator
- Biography
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Sydney Watson OBE was an English church musician who was the organist of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford and conductor of the Oxford Bach Choir from 1955 to 1970.
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Richard Harvey
- Occupations
- composerfilm score composer
- Biography
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Richard Allen Harvey is an English composer and musician. Originally a member of the mediaevalist progressive rock group Gryphon, he is best known now for his film and television soundtracks. He is also known for his guitar concerto Concerto Antico, which was composed for the guitarist John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra.
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Valerie Masterson
- Occupations
- opera singer
- Biography
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Margaret Valerie Masterson CBE is a retired English opera singer, a lecturer, and Vice-President of British Youth Opera. After studying in Italy, she began to sing opera in Europe. Returning to England, Masterson performed as principal soprano with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company from 1964 to 1969, becoming popular with audiences and participating in several of the company's recordings, as well as those of Gilbert and Sullivan for All and the BBC.
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Sofi Jeannin
- Occupations
- choir directorsinger
- Biography
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Sofi Jeannin is a Swedish choral conductor and mezzo-soprano.
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Gervase Elwes
- Occupations
- opera singer
- Biography
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Gervase Henry Cary-Elwes, DL, better known as Gervase Elwes, was an English tenor of great distinction, who exercised a powerful influence over the development of English music from the early 1900s up until his death in 1921 due to a railroad accident in Boston at the height of his career.
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Martin Shaw
- Occupations
- composer
- Biography
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Martin Edward Fallas Shaw OBE FRCM was an English composer, conductor, and (in his early life) theatre producer. His over 300 published works include songs, hymns, carols, oratorios, several instrumental works, a congregational mass setting (the Anglican Folk Mass), and four operas including a ballad opera.
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Simon Halsey
- Occupations
- conductoruniversity teacherchoir directormusic director
- Biography
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Simon Halsey, CBE is an English choral conductor. He is artistic advisor and choral director of the Oslo Philharmonic, principal guest conductor and choral ambassador of the Orfeó Català, principal guest conductor of the WDR Rundfunkchor Köln, and the chorus director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus (CBSO Chorus), a position he has held since 1983. He is also conductor laureate of the Berlin Radio Choir and choral director emeritus of the London Symphony Chorus. In 2025, he was made emeritus professor of music at the University of Birmingham.
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Colin Mawby
- Occupations
- composerconductor
- Biography
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Colin Mawby KSG was an English organist, choral conductor and composer. From 1961 he was Master of Music at Westminster Cathedral, then from 1981 he was the choral director at Radio Telefís Éireann. He composed masses dedicated to specific choirs, including in Germany. He was awarded Knighthood of the Order of St. Gregory in 2006.
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Douglas Lilburn
- Occupations
- composer
- Biography
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Douglas Gordon Lilburn ONZ was a New Zealand composer.
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Hamish MacCunn
- Occupations
- conductorpianistmusicologistcomposermusic educator
- Biography
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Hamish MacCunn, né James MacCunn was a Scottish composer, conductor and teacher.
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Camilla Tilling
- Occupations
- opera singer
- Biography
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Camilla Viktoria Rydh, best known as Camilla Tilling, is a Swedish soprano in opera and concert.
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Denise Orme
- Years
- 1885-1960 (aged 75)
- Occupations
- singermusicianopera singer
- Biography
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Jessie Smither, Duchess of Leinster, known by her stage name Denise Orme, was an English music hall singer, actress and musician who appeared regularly at the Alhambra and Gaiety Theatres in London in the early years of the 20th century. Married, successively, to an English baron, a Danish millionaire, and an Irish duke, she was the maternal grandmother of Aga Khan IV.
