VIDEO PODCAST: John Dante Prevedini leads a discussion about Youth Involvement in Classical Music - this specially extended illustrated feature includes contributions from Christopher Morley, Gerald Fenech, Halida Dinova, Patricia Spencer and Roderic Dunnett.
VIDEO PODCAST: New Recordings - Find out about Adrian Williams, Andriy Lehki, African Pianism, Heinrich Schütz and Walter Arlen, and meet Stephen Sutton of Divine Art Recordings, conductor Kenneth Woods, composer Graham Williams and others.
SPONSORED: Ensemble. A view from the pit - John Joubert's Jane Eyre, praised by Alice McVeigh.
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'... gentle passions and distinctive craftsmanship ...' - Patric Standford
John Jeffreys, a British composer of Welsh parentage, was born at Margate on 4 December 1927. He studied piano, counterpoint and musical philosophy at Trinity College of Music in London, and wrote a considerable amount of music for orchestra, chamber groups, keyboards and choirs. There is also a large collection of songs for voice and piano, of which more than a hundred have been published. Jeffreys, like many other composers, suffered during William Glock's years as controller of music at the BBC, and destroyed a large quantity of his music, but he later began a process of revision and recomposition. He lived in West Suffolk, and died on 3 September 2010, aged eighty-two.
(Another Welsh musician with the same name, but from the sixteenth century, was a composer of hymn tunes, especially Hero and Dyfrdwy. He was born at Llanynys in about 1718 and died in 1798.)
CD Spotlight. Gentle Passions - Music by John Jeffreys, heard by Patric Standford. '... beautifully paced ...'
Record box. The masque of pastiche - Trevor Hold listens to baritone songs by John Jeffreys