Gareth Glyn | |
---|---|
![]() Gareth Glyn in 2011 | |
Background information | |
Birth name | Gareth Glynne Davies |
Born | Machynlleth, Wales | 2 July 1951
Genres | Contemporary classical music |
Occupation(s) | Composer, arranger |
Years active | 1973–present |
Gareth Glyn, born Gareth Glynne Davies (born 1951), is a Welsh composer and radio broadcaster.
Born in Machynlleth, Wales, Glyn is the eldest son of the late Welsh poet T. Glynne Davies. He received his secondary education at Ysgol Maes Garmon in Mold, [1] before attending Merton College, University of Oxford, 1969–72, studying music and specialising in composition.
He has composed a wide range of musical pieces, including diverse vocal and orchestral work and music for television. He has produced one symphony, and many of his recorded orchestral works are in the light music genre, including A Snowdon Overture, Legend of the Lake and Anglesey Seascapes. In 2011, to coincide with his 60th birthday, a double CD of a selection of his orchestral works was released by Sain, including the substantial Enduring City celebrating the 300th anniversary of the founding of the city of New Bern.
In 2012, he was selected to provide the arrangement of Elgar's Nimrod for the opening ceremony of the London Olympic Games; it was played by 80 East London children, some of them beginners on their instruments and aged as young as 7, alongside a small number of London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) members. It is estimated that this broadcast was seen by a billion or more viewers worldwide.
Orchestras who have commissioned and/or performed his compositions include - in addition to the LSO - the BBC Concert Orchestra, the North Carolina Symphony, the Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Ulster Orchestra, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, I Musici de Montréal and the Royal Ballet Sinfonia; soloists include Bryn Terfel and Catrin Finch.
For his services to music, Gareth Glyn was made an Honorary Fellow of the Bangor University, and an Honorary Druid of the Gorsedd of Bards of the Island of Britain. He has made “a significant contribution to the music of Wales”. [2]
Glyn used to present the news and current affairs programme Post Prynhawn, broadcast on BBC Radio Cymru from Mondays to Fridays in the 5–6pm slot. He was the programme's main presenter from when it was first broadcast in 1978 until January 2013. [3]
The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London. Founded in 1904, the LSO is the oldest of London's symphony orchestras. The LSO was created by a group of players who left Henry Wood's Queen's Hall Orchestra because of a new rule requiring players to give the orchestra their exclusive services. The LSO itself later introduced a similar rule for its members. From the outset the LSO was organised on co-operative lines, with all players sharing the profits at the end of each season. This practice continued for the orchestra's first four decades.
Sir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent was an English conductor, organist and composer widely regarded as Britain's leading conductor of choral works. The musical ensembles with which he was associated included the Ballets Russes, the Huddersfield Choral Society, the Royal Choral Society, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, and the London Philharmonic, Hallé, Liverpool Philharmonic, BBC Symphony and Royal Philharmonic orchestras. Sargent was held in high esteem by choirs and instrumental soloists, but because of his high standards and a statement that he made in a 1936 interview disputing musicians' rights to tenure, his relationship with orchestral players was often uneasy. Despite this, he was co-founder of the London Philharmonic, was the first conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic as a full-time ensemble, and played an important part in saving the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra from disbandment in the 1960s.
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies was an English composer and conductor, who in 2004 was made Master of the Queen's Music.
BBC Cymru Wales is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcaster in Wales.
Grace Mary Williams was a Welsh composer, generally regarded as Wales's most notable female composer, and the first British woman to score a feature film.
Colin Matthews, OBE is an English composer of contemporary classical music. Noted for his large-scale orchestral compositions, Matthews is also a prolific arranger of other composer's music, including works by Berlioz, Britten, Dowland, Mahler, Purcell and Schubert. Other arrangements include orchestrations of all Debussy's 24 Préludes, both books of Debussy's Images, and two movements—Oiseaux tristes and La vallée des cloches—from Ravel's Miroirs. Having received a doctorate from University of Sussex on the works of Mahler, from 1964–1975 Matthews worked with his brother David Matthews and musicologist Deryck Cooke on completing a performance version of Mahler's Tenth Symphony.
Stuart Burrows is a Welsh operatic tenor.
Aneirin Talfan Davies was a Welsh poet, broadcaster and literary critic.
Arwel Hughes OBE was a Welsh orchestral conductor and composer.
David Wynne was a prolific Welsh composer, who taught for many years at Cardiff University and wrote much of his best-known music in retirement.
Friars School is a school in Bangor, Gwynedd, and one of the oldest schools in Wales.
Llŷr Williams is a Welsh concert pianist.
Mansel Treharne Thomas, was a Welsh composer and conductor, who worked mainly in South Wales. He was one of the most influential musicians of his generation, known as a composer, conductor and adjudicator. He was for many years employed by the BBC and promoted the careers of many composers and performers. He himself wrote vocal, choral, instrumental, band and orchestral music, specialising in setting songs and poetry. Many of his orchestral and chamber music pieces are based on Welsh folk songs and dances.
Geraint Talfan Davies OBE DL is a Welsh journalist and broadcaster, and a long-serving trustee and chairman of many Welsh civic, arts, media and cultural organisations.
Thomas Glynne Davies, usually known as T. Glynne Davies, was a Welsh poet, novelist and television and radio broadcaster. Davies was born at 64 Denbigh Street, in Llanrwst, Denbighshire, Wales.
The National Youth Orchestra of Wales is the national youth orchestra of Wales, based in Cardiff. Founded in 1945, it is the longest-standing national youth orchestra in the world.
Mark Eager is a London born conductor and former BBC National Orchestra of Wales Principal Trombone. He lives in Chelsea and Dorset, United Kingdom.
Christopher Painter is a composer who was born at Port Talbot, South Wales in 1962 and studied music at University College, Cardiff. His composition studies were initially with Timothy Taylor and Richard Elfyn Jones and in 1984 he began to study with Alun Hoddinott.
Walter Glynne was a Welsh operatic and concert tenor who was also a popular recording artist.
John Alexander Georgiadis was a British violinist and conductor. He was twice Concert Leader with the London Symphony Orchestra during the 1960s and 70s, a member of both the ensembles London Virtuosi and the Gabrieli String Quartet as well as conductor for both the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra and the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, and as Director of Orchestral Studies at the Royal Academy of Music.