James Stevens

Senior Citizen (Professional)

Composer/Lyricist:	Both
Genre:	Concert

Biography

James Stevens studied with the great Benjamin Frankel, Darius Milhaud and Nadia Boulanger, plus consultations with Arthur Honegger and Karl Amadeus Hartman. At the Guildhall School of Music he won the Royal Philharmonic prize, the Wainwright as “Composer of the Year”, plus other awards. Subsequently he has won almost everything in the book, for instance the Lili Boulanger Memorial Award, the Mendelssohn Scholarship (which Britten himself tried for more than once but failed), the Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai International Award in Tokyo and various other awards. 

He made a good name for himself composing film scores after he left music school but demolished his future in this field when they introduced new contracts which he considered unfair and refused to sign. 

The BBC Third Programme (the forerunner of Radio 3) also took him up in a big way, playing all his major works and commissioning musicals, an opera, and so on, but once William Glock took over his career was doomed. One of his problems is that he works across the board from pop to contemporary concert music taking in musicals, cabaret and everything else on the way, with equal facility and fidelity. One year he had a number one in the pop charts whist being the only British composer to be selected for that year’s ISCM festival. 

Samples of his work, a couple of early symphonies, one of his latest works, The Reluctant Masquerade, etc. may be found on the Pristine Audio website, www.pristineaudio.com.

Important Works		Performances
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