Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE (b. 8 September 1934), is a British composer and conductor. His surname is "Davies", and "Maxwell" is his middle name. To his friends, Davies is known as "Max". Commanders Badge of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions; in decreasing order of seniority, these are... September 8 is the 251st day of the year (252nd in leap years). ... 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... A composer is a person who writes music. ... Look up conductor in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Davies was born in Salford, England. He took piano lessons and composed from an early age. After education at Leigh Grammar School, he studied at the University of Manchester and at the Royal Manchester College of Music (amalgamated into the Royal Northern College of Music in 1973), where his fellow students included Harrison Birtwistle, Alexander Goehr, Elgar Howarth and John Ogdon. Together they formed New Music Manchester, a group committed to contemporary music. After graduating in 1956, he briefly studied with Goffredo Petrassi in Rome before working as Director of Music at Cirencester Grammar School from 1959 to 1962. Refurbished 1960s built high rise apartments Salford is a city in the north-west of England. ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: Multiple unofficial anthems Capital London Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq mi  Population    - 2005 est. ... A grand piano, with the lid up. ... The Victoria University of Manchester (VUM) was a large university in Manchester in England. ... Royal Northern College of Music The Royal Northern College of Music or RNCM is a conservatoire in Manchester, England. ... 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. ... Alexander Goehr (born 10 August 1932 in Berlin) is an English composer. ... Elgar Howarth is an English conductor and composer. ... John Andrew Howard Ogdon (Mansfield Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire January 27, 1937 – August 1, 1989) was an English pianist and composer. ... Goffredo Petrassi (July 16, 1904 – March 3, 2003) was an Italian composer of modern classical music. ... Cirencester is a market town in Gloucestershire, England, 93 miles (150 km) west northwest of London. ... Cirencester Grammar School was an historic school in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom. ... 1959 (MCMLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1962 (MCMLXII) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1962 calendar). ...

After a further period of study on a Harkness Fellowship at Princeton University with Roger Sessions, Milton Babbitt and Earl Kim, Davies moved to Australia, where he was Composer in Residence at the Elder Conservatorium of Music, University of Adelaide from 1965-66. Commonwealth Fund is a charitable fund established in 1918 by Anna Harkness, with Edward Harkness as its first president. ... Princeton University is a coeducational private university located in Princeton, New Jersey in the United States of America. ... Roger Sessions (28 December 1896 – 16 March 1985) was an American composer, critic and teacher of music. ... Milton Byron Babbitt (born May 10, 1916) is an American composer. ... The Elder School of Music is part of the University of Adelaide, it incorporates the Elder Conservatorium of Music and the former Flinders Street School of Music and is part of the Helpmann Academy. ... The University of Adelaide (or Adelaide University) is located in Adelaide, South Australia. ...

He then returned to the United Kingdom, and moved to the Orkney Islands, initially to Hoy in 1971 and later to Sanday. Orkney (particularly its capital, Kirkwall) hosts the St Magnus Festival, an arts festival founded by Davies in 1977. He frequently uses it to premier new works (often played by the local school orchestra). The Orkney Islands, usually called simply Orkney, are one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. ... Hoy shown within Orkney Islands Hoy (from Old Norse há-øy meaning high island) is one of the Orkney Islands. ... 1971 (MCMLXXI) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1971 calendar). ... Sanday shown within Orkney Islands Sanday is one of the inhabited islands in the Orkney Islands group off the northern coast of Scotland. ... Location within the British Isles Kirkwall is the largest town and capital of the Orkney Islands, off the coast of northern Scotland. ... For the album by Ash, see 1977 (album). ...

Davies was Artistic Director of the Dartington Summer School from 1979 to 1984 and has held a number of posts. From 1992 to 2002 he was associate conductor/composer with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and he has conducted a number of other prominent orchestras, including the Philharmonia, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday. ... For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ... The BBC Philharmonic is a professional symphony orchestra based in Manchester, United Kingdom. ... A conductor conducting a band at a ceremony A conductors score and batons Conducting is the act of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. ... The Philharmonia is an orchestra based in London. ... The Cleveland Orchestra is one of the major symphony orchestras in the United States. ... The Boston Symphony Orchestra is one of the worlds most renowned orchestras. ... The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra is a German orchestra based in Leipzig, Germany. ...

He has been awarded a number of honorary doctorates at various institutions. He has been President of Making Music (The National Federation of Music Societies) since 1989. Davies was made a CBE in 1981 and knighted in 1987. He was appointed Master of the Queen's Music for a ten-year period from March 2004. 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Commanders Badge of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions; in decreasing order of seniority, these are... 1981 (MCMLXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The silver Anglia knight, commissioned as a trophy in 1850, intended to represent the Black Prince. ... 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Master of the Queens Music (or Master of the Kings Music) is a prestigious post in the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Davies is gay and has a keen interest in environmentalism. For other articles with similar names, see Gay (disambiguation). ... Environmentalism is the advocation of preservation, restoration, and/or improvement of the natural environment, such as the control of air pollution. ...

Davies's music

Davies is a prolific composer who has written music in a variety of styles and idioms over his career, often combining disparate styles in one piece.

Early works include the Trumpet Sonata (1955), written while he was at college, and his first orchestral work, Prolation (1958), written while under the tutelage of Petrassi. Early works often use serial techniques (for example Sinfonia for chamber orchestra, 1962), sometimes combined with Mediaeval and Renaissance compositional methods. Fragments of plainsong are often used as basic source material to be adapted and developed in various ways. Serialism is a technique for composing music that uses sets to describe musical elements, and allows the composer manipulations of those sets to create music. ... Broadly speaking, plainsong is the name given to the body of traditional songs used in the liturgies of the Catholic Church. ...

Pieces from the late 1960s take up these techniques and tend towards expressionism and a violent character - these include Revelation and Fall (based on a poem by Georg Trakl), the music theatre pieces Eight Songs for a Mad King and Vesalii Icones, and the opera Taverner. Taverner again shows an interest in Renaissance music, taking as its subject the composer John Taverner, and consisting of parts resembling Renaissance forms. The orchestral piece St Thomas Wake (1969) also shows this interest, and is a particularly obvious example of Davies's polystylism, combining, as it does, a suite of foxtrots (played by a twenties-style dance band), a pavan by John Bull and Davies's "own" music (the work is described by Davies as a "Foxtrot for orchestra on a pavan by John Bull"). Many works from this period were performed by the Pierrot Players which Davies founded with Harrison Birtwistle in 1967 (they were reformed as The Fires of London in 1970, disbanded in 1987). The Scream by Edvard Munch (1893) which inspired 20th century Expressionists Portrait of Eduard Kosmack by Egon Schiele Rehe im Walde by Franz Marc Elbe Bridge I by Rolf Nesch On White II by Wassily Kandinsky, 1923. ... Georg Trakl A poem by Trakl inscribed on a plaque in Mirabell Garden, Salzburg. ... The Teatro alla Scala in Milan is one of the worlds most famous opera houses. ... John Taverner should not be confused with the 20th-21st century British composer John Tavener. ... FoxTrot is a daily American comic strip written and illustrated by Bill Amend centering on the daily lives of the Fox family; Andy, Roger, Paige, Peter, and Jason. ... It is a word from Sanskrit meaning wind. ... John Bull (1562 or 1563–March 12, 1628) was an English composer, musician, and organ builder. ... 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. ... First formed in 1967 as the Pierrot Players under the joint direction of the composers Peter Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle, The Fires of London were an English chamber ensemble. ...

Davies is known for his use of magic squares as a source of musical materials and as a structural determinant. In his work Ave Maris Stella (1975) he used a 9x9 square numerologically associated with the moon, reduced modulo 9 to produce a Latin square, to permute the notes of a plainsong melody with the same name as the piece and to govern the durations of the notes. In recreational mathematics, a magic square of order n is an arrangement of n² numbers, usually distinct integers, in a square, such that the n numbers in all rows, all columns, and both diagonals sum to the same constant. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Modular arithmetic (sometimes called modulo arithmetic) is a system of arithmetic for integers, where numbers wrap around after they reach a certain value — the modulus. ... A Latin square is an n × n table filled with n different symbols in such a way that each symbol occurs exactly once in each row and exactly once in each column. ...

Worldes Blis (1969) indicated a move towards a more integrated and somewhat more restrained style, anticipating the calm which Davies would soon find at his new home in Orkney. Some have drawn a comparison between this later style and the music of Jean Sibelius. Sibelius redirects to this article. ...

Since his move to Orkney, Davies has often drawn on Orcadian or more generally Scottish themes in his music, and has sometimes set the words of Orcadian writer George Mackay Brown. He has written a number of other operas, The Martyrdom of St Magnus (1976), The Lighthouse (1980, his most popular opera), Resurrection (1987), and The Doctor of Myddfai (1996). Davies also became interested in classical forms, completing his first symphony in 1976. He has written eight numbered symphonies since - a symphonic cycle of the Symphonies No.1 - No.7 (-2000), a Symphony No.8 titled the 'Antarctic' (2000), a Sinfonia Concertante (1982), as well as the series of ten Strathclyde Concertos for various instruments (pieces born out of his association with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, 1987-1996). In 2002, he began work on a series of string quartets for the Maggini String Quartet to record on the Naxos record label (the so-called Naxos Quartets). His most recent one is No.9 (2006). George Mackay Brown (1921 - 1996), was a poet, author and dramatist. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Strathclyde (Srath Chluaidh in Gaelic) was one of the regional council areas of Scotland from 1975 to 1996. ... The Scottish Chamber Orchestra is a professional chamber orchestra based in Edinburgh, United Kingdom. ... The resident string quartet of the Library of Congress in 1963 A string quartet (French: quatuor à cordes, German: Streichquartett, Italian: quartetto di corde or quartetto darchi, Spanish: cuarteto de cuerdas) is a musical ensemble of four string instruments—usually two violins, a viola and cello—or a piece written...

Davies has also written a number of lighter orchestral works such as Mavis in Las Vegas and An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise (which features the bagpipes), as well as a number of theatre pieces for children and a good deal of music with educational purposes. Additionally he wrote the scores for Ken Russell's films The Devils and The Boy Friend. A piper playing the Great Highland Bagpipe. ... Henry Kenneth Alfred Russell, known as Ken Russell (born July 3, 1927), is a controversial English film director, particularly known for his films about famous composers. ... For the 2002 musical project, see The Devils (band). ... Hortense holds the packages as Maisie, Fay, Dulcie and Nancy surrond her. ...

Maxwell Davies's short piano piece Farewell to Stromness entered the Classic FM Hall of Fame in 2003, his first ever entry. Classic FM is the United Kingdoms first national commercial radio station, broadcasting classical music in a popular and accessible style. ...

He also wrote several children's operas including A Selkie Tale, The Great Bank Robbery and The Spider's Revenge.

Career highlights

• 1953-8 - studied in Manchester and Rome.
• 1967 - together with Harrison Birtwistle, founded the contemporary music touring ensemble the Pierrot Players (later renamed The Fires of London).
• 1971 - moved to Hoy in the Orkney Islands.
• 1987-96 - wrote the ten Strathclyde Concertos for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.
• 2002 - embarked on a cycle of ten string quartets, commissioned by Naxos.
• 2004 - appointed Master of the Queen’s Music.

Selected compositions

• Eight Songs For A Mad King (1968; for singer/narrator/actor and chamber ensemble)
• Ave Maris Stella (1975; chamber ensemble)
• Symphony No. 1 (1976-77; orchestra)
• The Lighthouse (1979; chamber opera)
• Cinderella (1980; children’s opera)
• Image, Reflection, Shadow (1982; ensemble)
• Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1985; dedicated to Isaac Stern who gave the first performance on June 21, 1986 at the St. Magnus Festival in the Orkney Islands)
• Caroline Mathilde (1991; ballet)
• A Spell for Green Corn: The MacDonald Dances (1993; violin, orchestra)
• Job (1997; singers, orchestra)

Isaac Stern (July 21, 1920 – September 22, 2001) is widely considered one of the finest violin virtuosi of the twentieth century. ...

Selected recordings

• Naxos Quartets Nos 1-4 - Naxos 8.557396-7
• Missa parvula; two organ pieces; two motets - Hyperion CDA67454
• Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis and O Sacrum Convivium - Delphian DCD34037

Notable students

• Ronald Caltabiano

Ronald Caltabiano (b. ...

External links

• MaxOpus (official site) Includes music sales via downloads or custom CDs.
• A portrait in words of the composer by Stephen Moss in The Guardian
• Sir Peter Maxwell Davies' homepage at Chester Music
• Maxwell Davies and the String Quartet CompositionToday article by Paul Driver
• Peter Maxwell Davies interview with Bruce Duffie