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Peter Maxwell Davies
Biography
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (8 September 1934, Salford, England – 14 March 2016, Sanday, Orkney) was a British composer and conductor, who in 2004 was made Master of the Queen's Music.
Davies attended the Royal Manchester College of Music and Manchester University. One of his first compositions, Sonata for Trumpet and Piano, was premiered by another R.M.C.M. classmate, Elgar Howarth, in 1955. He studied in Rome with Goffredo Petrassi and later attended Princeton University, studying with Roger Sessions, Earl Kim, and Milton Babbitt.
Davies composed a number of pieces for the Pierrot Players, a group founded along with Birtwistle. He has served as associate conductor for the B.B.C. Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic and has also conducted the Boston Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra,the Leipzig Gewandhaus, and the San Francisco Symphony. Among performers he has composed for are the B.B.C. Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, and Isaac Stern. His works include eight symphonies, 10 Strathclyde concertos, and the frequently performed orchestral work An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise (1985), commissioned by the Boston Pops Orchestra.
Works for Winds
- Almas Redemptoris Maler
- Beacons of Hope (2005)
- Crossing Kings Peach
- De Assumtione Beatae Mariae Virginis
- Ecce Manus Tradentis
- Fanfare : Musis Aurora Benigna
- Leopardi Fragments
- Linguae Ignis (Tongues of Fire)
- Mishkenot
- Ricercar and Doubles
- Shakespeare Music
- St Michael (1957)
- Suite from The Boy Friend
- Suite from The Devils
- Thaw
Resources
- Sir Peter Maxwell Davies website
- Cummings, D. M. (1998). International who’s who in music and musician directory. Cambridge, England: International Biographical Centre.
- Henderson, R. (1961). Peter Maxwell Davies. The Musical Times Vol. 102 (1424), p. 624-626.
- Henderson, R. (1965). Peter Maxwell Davies’s Shakespeare Music. Tempo, New Series 72, p. 15-18.
- Warnaby, J. (n.d.). Peter Maxwell Davies. (Electronic version). Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Accessed 12 February 2009