Michael Graubart
Michael Graubart was born in Vienna in 1930 and came to England as a refugee in 1938. He studied physics at Manchester University, but spent most of his time there composing and playing the flute. He graduated in 1952 and worked as a development engineer in electronics at EMI for several years and then as a teacher and lecturer in maths, physics and music in a secondary school, in various polytechnics and colleges and on an American air base while studying composition with Mátyás Seiber, flute with Geoffrey Gilbert and conducting with Lawrence Leonard, playing the flute and conducting various amateur and professional choirs and orchestras.
In 1966 Graubart became a tutor and conductor, and from 1969 to 1991 the Director of Music (Head of the Music Department), at Morley College in London, an Adult Education college noted for its music department whose previous Directors of Music have included Holst and Tippett. He also worked as Musical Director of Focus Opera Group, conducting many first performances, and held the post of Adjunct Professor of Music at the London campus of Syracuse University (USA).
From 1991 to 1996 he was a Senior Lecturer in the School of Academic Studies and Director of Akanthos, the College's contemporary-music ensemble, at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, taught in the Extra-Mural Department of Manchester University and conducted choirs in the North.
His compositions have been performed and broadcast in Britain, the USA, Canada, Austria and Italy. He has edited early music and has written numerous articles and reviews for Composer, Encounter, Tempo, Musical Times, Acta Mozartiana and The International Journal of Musicology.
He retired from full-time teaching in 1996, though he still lectures, composes, writes and teaches groups of adults privately.
For many years now he has participated in regular seminars on modern European philosophy, and he listens to music, reads, visits art exhibitions (especially of twentieth century and contemporary art) and walks, preferably in hill-country.
Articles by Michael Graubart
A Remembrance Concert in Clapham
Piano music by Erik Chisholm. '... effortless technique ...'