Joseph Horovitz

Senior Citizen (Professional)

Composer/Lyricist:	Composer
Genre:	Concert

Biography

Joseph Horovitz was born in Vienna in 1926 and settled in England in 1938. After taking a music degree at New College, Oxford, he studied composition with Gordon Jacob at the Royal College of Music, London, winning the Farrar Prize, and with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. His first post was as Music Director of the Bristol Old Vic Company (1950-51); he then came to London during the Festival of Britain to conduct various ballet companies including the Ballets Russes. From 1952-63 he was Associate Director of the Intimate Opera Company and in 1956 joined the music staff of Glyndebourne Opera.

He received the Commonwealth Medal for Composition in 1959 and a Leverhulme Research Award in 1961, and has won two Ivor Novello Awards: for Captain Noah and his Floating Zoo (Best British Music for Children 1975) and "Lillie" (Best TV Music 1978). In 1990 he received a BACS Gold Badge. He was awarded the Gold Order of Merit of the City of Vienna in 1996, and in 2002 the Nino Rota Prize in Italy for "an outstanding international musical career". In 2007 he received the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Arts First Class, and honorary membership of the Austrian Composers' Society. The Worshipful Company of Musicians awarded him the Cobbett Medal in 2008 for services to chamber music.

He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Music, where he has been a Professor of Composition since 1961. He has been a Council Member of the Composers' Guild of Great Britain since 1970, served on the Executive of the Performing Right Society from 1969-1996, and from 1981-89 was President of the International Council of Composers and Lyricsts (CIAM).

His works range widely: fourteen ballets, including Alice in Wonderland commissioned by Festival Ballet in 1953 and regularly revived world-wide; two one-act operas - The Dumb Wife (libretto Peter Shaffer) and Gentleman's Island (libretto Gordon Snell); nine concertos (oboe, trumpet, clarinet, bassoon, euphonium, tuba, violin, percussion, jazz harpsichord/piano); five string quartets; music for orchestra, brass band and wind ensembles; choral works, including an ecological cantata Summer Sunday and an oratorio Samson; works for Hoffnung Concerts - Bournevita and Horrortorio; music for Son et Lumiere, and over seventy TV scores, including two BBC Shakespeare plays, Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie series, Fight Against Slavery, Dorian Gray, Rumpole of the Bailey. He has recently completed an opera, Ninotchka.

MAIN PUBLISHERS
NOVELLO & CO & CHESTER MUSIC at Music Sales Ltd.....Contact Victoria Small
Tel:+44 (0)20 7612 7438 Fax:+44 (0)20 7612 7549 E-mail: promotion@musicsales.co.uk www.chesternovello.com

EMERSON EDITION Works for oboe
Tel:+44 (0)1439 788324 Fax:+44 (0)1439 788715 E-mail: JuneEmerson@compuserve.com www.juneemerson.co.uk

STUDIO MUSIC Co. Brass & wind works (Tuba Concerto and Theme & Co-operation)
Tel:+44 (0)20 8330 0110 Fax:+44 (0)20 8451 6470 E-mail: sales@studio-music.co.uk www.studio-music.co.uk

MOLENAAR EDITION (HOLLAND) Wind orchestra works (Bacchus on Blue Ridge, Dance Suite, Wind Harp, Ad Astra, Commedia dell' Arte)
Tel: 0031 75 628 6859 Fax: 0031 75 621 4991 E-mail: office@molenaar.com www.molenaar.com
UK agents for Molenaar: Wind Mail Associates Tel: 01322 862455 Fax: 01322 866154

Important Works		Performances
Clarinet Sonatina (1981)13' (Novello) CD: Gervase de Peyer cl. & Gwenneth Pryor pno. Chandos CHAN 8549 and other CDs Premiered Wigmore Hall, London, May 1981 Oboe Concerto (1993)20' (Emerson Edition) Commissioned by the Isle of Wight International Oboe Competition 1993 CD: Nicholas Daniel & Royal Ballet Sinfonia, conducted by the composer, ASV-WHL 2114 Music Hall Suite (1964)9' (Novello) CD: Philip Jones Brass Quintet CLAVES CD 50-600 and other CDs Fantasia on a Theme of Couperin (1962)13' (Novello)Premiered Philomusica of London, conductor Sir Adrian Boult, 11 solo strings (or wind nonet) CD: 2007 Carducci Ensemble CSQ6482 Captain Noah and his Floating Zoo (1970)24' (Novello) Cantata, words Michael Flanders Chorus with piano, bass and percussion Premiered 1971 Queen Elizabeth Hall, King's Singers,Ivor Novello Award 1975 CD: 2005 Vocalion CDLF8120 Euphonium Concerto (1972)16' (Novello) Brass band/wind band /orchestra, Premiered 1972 Royal Albert Hall, London, CD: Steven Mead, CWS Band, Polyphonic DPRL901D and other CDs Bacchus on Blue Ridge (wind orchestra 1984, originally orchestra 1974)19' (Molenaar) CD: Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra, conductor Frederick Fennell KOCD 3564 and other CDs String Quartet No. 5 (1969)15' (Novello) Dedicated to Sir Ernst Gombrich Premiered Victoria & Albert Museum London, June 1969 Amadeus Quartet. First BBC broadcast November 1969 CD: 2007 Carducci String Quartet CSQ6482 Gentleman's Island (1958) 28' (Chester) Libretto Gordon Snell. Vocal score in English and German, Tenor and baritone, with piano or chamber orchestra. Premiered Cheltenham Festival 1958 Lady Macbeth - Scena (1970)9' (Novello) Mezzo-soprano and piano. Commissioned by the Bergen Festival, Norway, May 1970 CD: Shakespeare's Kingdom, Sarah Walker & Graham Johnson, Hyperion CDA 66136		None added