Roy Douglas

British arranger, pianist and composer Richard Roy Douglas was born at Tunbridge Wells on 12 December 1907. Self-taught in music, he gained experience writing film scores and assisting Mischa Spoliansky, Arthur Benjamin, Anthony Collins, Nicholas Brodzsky, Noel Coward, John Ireland and Walter Goehr.

He is known for working as musical assistant to Richard Addinsell (from 1937 until 1943, including the Warsaw Concerto, written as part of the score for the 1941 film Dangerous Moonlight), William Walton (from 1940, working on film scores, ballet music, Facade, Belshazzar's Feast and Troilus and Cressida) and with Ralph Vaughan Williams (from 1947 until 1958, on works including Symphonies 6-9, The Pilgrim's Progress and the Tuba Concerto).

His own music included scores for eleven films, music for more than thirty radio programmes, an oboe quartet and several works for strings and chamber compositions.

Roy Douglas died in a nursing home in Tunbridge Wells on 23 March 2015, aged a-hundred-and-seven.

 

 

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