Richard Hill (musician)

Last updated

Richard Hill (born 22 August 1942) is a British composer. He initially studied trombone at the Royal College of Music in London in the 1960s, before moving into music production and composition.

Contents

Career

At the Royal College of Music Hill became a founder member of the London Gabrieli Brass Ensemble. He also worked in rock and jazz circles playing with the Dave Keir Jazz Band among others. After leaving College, Hill played in a number of symphony orchestras on a freelance basis including the Royal Opera House Orchestra, the London Philharmonic and the Philharmonia. Working under such conductors as Sir Georg Solti, Leonard Bernstein and Rudolf Schwarz, Hill further broadened his musical experience by playing Duke Ellington's music under Billy Strayhorn in a production of Shakespeare's Timon of Athens.

In the 1960s, Hill’s career underwent a sea change when he joined Polydor Records as a producer and studio arranger at the height of the sixties pop boom. He stopped playing and began to compose. This in turn led to a career as a media composer in film, television and theatre. Film scores included To Kill a Clown starring Alan Alda and Baffled! Starring Susan Hampshire and Leonard Nimoy.

Along with television themes, station promos and advertising jingles, Hill wrote scores for major drama series, including Arnold Bennett's Clayhanger trilogy, John Mortimer's Will Shakespeare and Don Shaw's Sounding Brass . Throughout this period Hill had worldwide success as cowriter with Johnny Hawkins of the musical Canterbury Tales , which ran for over five years in the West End, became a Broadway production for Frank Loesser, and is still occasionally performed around the world. [1] In 1986 Chris Barber commissioned and cowrote a concerto for jazz trombone with Hill. It premiered behind the Berlin Wall at the Palast der Republik on 2 October 1986. [2]

Between the mid-1990s and 2008, Hill worked on some major concert halls and symphonic projects. The Symphony of Jazz repertoire, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Images from Kubla Khan all represent his new style of integrated contemporary music.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark-Anthony Turnage</span> English composer (born 1960)

Mark-Anthony Turnage is an English composer of contemporary classical music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Malcolm Arnold</span> English composer (1921–2006)

Sir Malcolm Henry Arnold was an English composer. His works feature music in many genres, including a cycle of nine symphonies, numerous concertos, concert works, chamber music, choral music and music for brass band and wind band. His style is tonal and rejoices in lively rhythms, brilliant orchestration, and an unabashed tunefulness. He wrote extensively for the theatre, with five ballets specially commissioned by the Royal Ballet, as well as two operas and a musical. He also produced scores for more than a hundred films, among these The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), for which he won an Oscar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Rodney Bennett</span> English composer and pianist (1936–2012)

Sir Richard Rodney Bennett was an English composer of film, TV and concert music, and also a jazz pianist and occasional vocalist. He was based in New York City from 1979 until his death there in 2012.

Stephen Cuthbert Vivian Dodgson was a British composer and broadcaster. Dodgson's prolific musical output covered most genres, ranging from opera and large-scale orchestral music to chamber and instrumental music, as well as choral works and song. Three instruments to which he dedicated particular attention were the guitar, harpsichord and recorder. He wrote in a mainly tonal, although sometimes unconventional, idiom. Some of his works use unusual combinations of instruments.

Gordon Percival Septimus Jacob CBE was an English composer and teacher. He was a professor at the Royal College of Music in London from 1924 until his retirement in 1966, and published four books and many articles about music. As a composer he was prolific: the list of his works totals more than 700, mostly compositions of his own, but a substantial minority of orchestrations and arrangements of other composers' works. Those whose music he orchestrated range from William Byrd to Edward Elgar to Noël Coward.

Alan Ridout was a British composer and teacher.

Edward Gregson is an English composer of instrumental and choral music, particularly for brass and wind bands and ensembles, as well as music for the theatre, film, and television. He was also principal of the Royal Northern College of Music.

William Joseph Russo was an American composer, arranger, and musician from Chicago, Illinois, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Johan de Meij</span> Dutch conductor, trombonist and composer

Johannes Abraham "Johan" de Meij is a Dutch conductor, trombonist, and composer, best known for his Symphony No. 1 for wind ensemble, nicknamed The Lord of the Rings symphony.

Ernest Tomlinson MBE was an English composer, particularly noted for his light music compositions. He was sometimes credited as 'Alan Perry'. Tomlinson wrote over 100 pieces of library music, thirteen orchestral suites, symphonic works and music for brass band.

Guy Anthony Woolfenden was an English composer and conductor. He was head of music at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon for 37 years, making music an integral part of over 150 productions there. He completed scores for the full canon of Shakespeare plays.

Leonard Salzedo was an English composer and conductor of Spanish descent. He composed over 160 works, including 18 film scores, 17 ballets, ten string quartets and two symphonies.

Roger Argente was Principal Bass Trombone for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and teaches at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Cardiff, Wales.

Richard Peaslee was a composer who worked in a variety of idioms, including chorus, orchestra, dance, and soundtracks for film and television, but he was most active as a composer for the theatre.

Martin Yates is a British conductor. After attending Kimbolton School, he studied at the Royal College of Music and Trinity College of Music, London, where his teachers included Bernard Keeffe (conducting), Richard Arnell (composition), Ian Lake, Jakob Kaletsky and Alan Rowlands (piano), and Douglas Moore and John Burden.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Bassano</span> English conductor

Peter Bassano is an English conductor.

Herbert Menges OBE was an English conductor and composer, who wrote incidental music to all of Shakespeare's plays.

James Stevens was an English composer of symphonic, operatic and avant-garde orchestral music, including film and television scores, as well as pop music of the 1960s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allan Zavod</span> Musical artist

Allan Zavod was an Australian pianist, composer, jazz musician and occasional conductor whose career was mainly in America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stanley Silverman</span>

Stanley Silverman is an American composer, arranger, conductor and guitarist.

References

  1. ↑ Time Magazine article
  2. ↑ Richard Hill Music. Concerto for Jazz Trombone
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.