Sir Harrison Paul Birtwistle, CH (born July 15, 1934) is a British composer, widely seen as one of the most significant modern composers from that country. The Order of the Companions of Honour is a British and Commonwealth Order (decoration). ... July 15 is the 196th day (197th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 169 days remaining. ... 1934 was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... A composer is a person who writes music. ...

Birtwistle was born in Accrington in Lancashire. He entered the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester in 1952 on a clarinet scholarship. While there he met fellow composers Peter Maxwell Davies and Alexander Goehr, and together with John Ogdon and Elgar Howarth they formed the New Music Manchester group, which was dedicated to the performances of serial music and other works in a modern vein. Arms of Accrington Borough Council Accrington, in the County of Lancashire, is a small former mill town in the industrial north-west of England. ... Lancashire (archaically, the County of Lancaster) is a county palatine of England, lying on the Irish Sea. ... Royal Northern College of Music The Royal Northern College of Music or RNCM is a conservatoire in Manchester, England. ... Location within the British Isles. ... A bass clarinet, which sounds an octave lower than the more common Bb soprano clarinet. ... Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (born September 8, 1934) is a British composer. ... Alexander Goehr (born 1932) is an English composer. ... John Ogdon (January 27, 1937 – August 1, 1989) was a pianist and composer born in Mansfield Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom. ... Serialism is a rigorous system of composing music in which various elements of the piece are ordered according to a pre-determined ordered set or sets, and variations on them. ...

Birtwistle left the college in 1955, and until 1965 he made a living as a schoolteacher, but then received a Harkness Fellowship, which allowed him to study music in the United States. He subsequently dedicated himself to composition.

In 1975, Birtwistle became musical director of the newly established Royal National Theatre in London, a post he held until 1988. From 1994 to 2001 he was Henry Purcell Professor of Composition at King's College London. Categories: Stub | London attractions | Theatre in London | British Theatres ... The Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster which contains Big Ben London is the capital city of the United Kingdom and of England. ... Henry Purcell (September 10 (?), 1659 (?)–November 21, 1695), a Baroque composer, is generally considered to be one of Englands greatest composers — indeed, he has often been called Englands finest native composer. ... Kings College London (often abbreviated to KCL) in London is the largest college in the federal University of London, with 21,500 registered students. ...

Birtwistle's pieces are in a complex modernistic style. His early work is sometimes evocative of Igor Stravinsky and Olivier Messiaen (both acknowledged influences), and his technique of juxtaposing blocks of sound is sometimes compared to Edgar Varèse. His music makes frequent use of ostinatos and often has a ritualistic feel. Igor Fyodorovitch Stravinsky (Russian: ) (June 17, 1882 – April 6, 1971) was Russian composer of modern classical music. ... Olivier Messiaen (December 10, 1908 – April 27, 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithologist. ... Edgar (or Edgard) Varèse (December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965) was a French-born composer, who moved to the United States in 1915, and took American citizenship in 1926. ... Ostinato, an Italian word meaning stubborn (compare English obstinate), is to classical music what riffs are to popular music. ...

Among Birtwistle's better known pieces are the first work he is happy to acknowledge, the wind quintet Refrains and Choruses (1957); the piano pieces Harrison's Clocks (1998); the orchestral works The Triumph of Time (1971) and Earth Dances (1986); and the operas Punch and Judy (1967), The Mask of Orpheus (1984), Gawain (1990), and The Last Supper (2000). This article is about the modern musical instrument. ... Orchestra at City Hall (Edmonton). ... The foyer of Charles Garniers Opéra, Paris, opened 1875 Opera is an art form consisting of a dramatic stage performance set to music. ... The Mask of Orpheus is an opera with music by Harrison Birtwistle and a libretto by Peter Zinovieff. ...

Birtwistle gained some notoriety in 1995 when his piece for drum kit, alto saxophone and orchestra, Panic, was premiered at the Last Night of the Proms in 1995. Birtwistle's music had not previously been heard in such a public forum, and most of the press did not hold back in its negative criticism of the piece, heard in a concert traditionally devoted to more popular classics and patriotic pieces. A drum kit (or drum set or trap set - the latter an old-fashioned term) is a collection of drums, cymbals and other percussion instruments arranged for convenient playing by a sole percussionist (drummer), usually for jazz, rock, or other types of contemporary music. ... Saxophones of different sizes play in different registers. ... A Promenade concert in the Royal Albert Hall, 2004. ...

External links

• CompositionToday - Birtwistle article and review of works (http://www.compositiontoday.com/articles/birtwistle.asp)