Edward Gregson (born 1945) is a composer of international standing, whose music has been performed, broadcast, and commercially recorded worldwide. He studied composition (with Alan Bush) and piano at the Royal Academy of Music from 1963 - 1967 winning five prizes for composition. Since then he has worked solely to commission and has written orchestral, chamber, instrumental and choral music, as well as music for the theatre, film and television.
His commissions have included, amongst others, orchestral music for the English Chamber Orchestra, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the BBC Philharmonic, and the Hallé, with performances by many other orchestras and ensembles around the world. Of particular significance in his orchestral output is the series of nine concertos (for horn, tuba, trombone, trumpet, clarinet, piano, violin, saxophone, and cello) which he commenced in 1970 and is still ongoing. His most recent work for orchestra was commissioned by BBC Radio 3 for the ’Mahler in Manchester’ Festival - Dream Song was premiered by the BBC Philharmonic under Gianandrea Noseda in 2010 and received great critical acclaim. Gregson is also internationally renowned for his contributions to the wind and brass repertoire.
In 1988 he was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for his title music for BBC Television’s Young Musician of the Year programmes and in the same year he was commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company to write the music for a major cycle of the Shakespeare history plays. In 2002 a major retrospective of his music was held in Manchester which coincided with the release of a CD of his orchestral music (including the clarinet and violin concertos) on the Chandos label. A second volume (including the concertos for piano, saxophone and trumpet) was released in 2008, whilst a third will be released in 2011.
Edward Gregson retired from an academic career in music in the summer of 2008, latterly as Principal of the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, a post he held for 12 years. He still serves on a number of important boards relating to music education and the music profession and has been honoured with many Doctorates and Fellowships from English universities and conservatoires.