Biography

PATRIC STANDFORD (1939-2014)

Patric Standford is an award-winning and highly acclaimed composer. He was also a passionate supporter of composers’ rights, committed to music education, a university college director, author of Projects: a course in musical composition and a music journalist contributing articles, reviews and opinions to a wide range of music publications.

Standford’s Symphony No. 1: The Seasons – The English Year gained the Premio Cittá di Trieste. His large scale oratorio Christus Requiem earned him the Yugoslav Government’s Arts Award after performances in Skopje and the Oscar Espla Award, Alicante, Spain. His original Symphony No. 3: Toward Paradise was awarded the Ernest Ansermet Prize by the city of Geneva. The BBC then commissioned his Symphony No. 5. His Masque: The Prayer of St Francis received the First International Composers’ Award in Budapest. Standford’s Christmas Carol Symphony is played and broadcast all over the world.

In his early years, Standford worked as a composer and arranger for West End shows, films and Granada television. He produced arrangements for the London Palladium, composing for Pathé News, the BBCs Light Orchestras and an album for the jazz group Continuum, along side a little ghost writing for Rod McKuen’s classical American recordings. His Ballet Suite: Celestial Fire is also popular around the world and was regularly played on what was then the BBC Light Programme.

As a highly respected composer of choral music, he became a regular visitor to Hungary, Estonia, Finland and France as a jury member for choral competitions. His 70th birthday was marked by the BBC Singers recording a wide selection of his unaccompanied choral works.

Standford represented British composers as Chairman of the Composers Guild of Great Britain, the British Music Information Centre and was a Council member of the Musicians Benevolent Fund. While holding these posts, he organised British music representation at various international events, including the Nordic Music Committee (NOMUS) in Helsinki and the Latin-American Festival in Venezuela in collaboration with the BBC.

Committed to music education, Standford taught composition and orchestration at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London for 15 years before establishing himself in Yorkshire to become Director of Music at Leeds University, Bretton Hall College. He then went on to devise and deliver the accredited Music Course for the Open College of the Arts.
Patric Standford studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Goldsmith’s College, London.

Peters Edition London are his principal publishers.
Standford was married with three children.