Gary Carpenter

Gary Carpenter (1951- ) studied composition at the Royal College of Music, London with Humphrey Searle, Thea Musgrave and John Lambert and participated in master classes with Nadia Boulanger. He has lived in Holland and Germany and has written operas, musicals, ballets, a radio music-drama (The One Alone with Iris Murdoch) and much concert music. Musical director and/or arranger-orchestrator on many stage shows and films (including The Wicker Man [1972]), his Azaleas for harp trio received a 2006 British Composer Award in the chamber category. A portrait CD - Die Flimmerkiste is available on NMC. Recent works include Fred and Ginger (LSO, Daniel Harding), SET (Iain Ballamy (tenor sax), BBCPO, HK Gruber] and Dadaville (BBCSO, Sakari Oramo) for The First Night of the 2015 Proms. His orchestral work Willie Stock was premiered at the Aldeburgh Festival 2016 with the BBCSO conducted by Oliver Knussen. Ghost Songs for junior choir and orchestra (RSNO/CBSO/RLPO/Basque National Orchestra joint commission) was premiered in Scotland (November 2018) and Mondrian (Harpsichord Concerto) for Mahan Esfahani and Ensemble 10/10 in Liverpool (March 2019).

Gary was the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s Composer in Association (2018-19) and is Professor of Composition at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester and a professor of composition at the Royal Academy of Music, London. SET, a CD of his orchestral works with the RLPO conducted by Clark Rundell and Andrew Manze with soloists Iain Ballamy and Kathryn Rudge is released by Nimbus Alliance.