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First name: Howard
Last name: Blake
Dates: 1938
Category: Quartet
Nationality: english
Opus name: Opus 485 Romanza (1995)
Publisher: Highbridge Music
Peculiarities: arranged by the composer from the orchesterpiece
Information: Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians states that ‘Howard Blake has achieved fame as pianist, conductor and composer.’ He grew up in Sussex, from the age of 11 singing lead roles as a boy soprano and at 18 winning the Hastings Festival Scholarship to The Royal Academy of Music, where he studied piano with Harold Craxton and composition with Howard Ferguson. Over an intensely active career he has written numerous film scores. Howard has composed many concert works, including the Piano Concerto commissioned by The Philharmonia Orchestra for the 30th birthday of Princess Diana in 1991 in which he also featured as soloist: the Violin Concerto to celebrate the centenary of the City of Leeds in 1993; the cantata to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations Organization in 1995, performed in the presence of the Royal Family in Westminster Hall; and the large-scale choral/orchestral work 'Benedictus', championed by Sir David Willcocks and the Bach Choir, given its London premiere in Westminster Cathedral in 1989 with Cardinal Hume as narrator and widely performed ever since. In 2008 he was pianist with violinist Madeleine Mitchell in a CD for Naxos of his works for strings and piano and in August 2009 undertook a major recording for the same company conducting 'The Passion of Mary' and 'Four Songs of the Nativity' with London Voices and the RPO. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music and in 1994 received the OBE for services to music.