Archives: Composers

Clément Philibert Léo Delibes was a French Romantic composer, born on February 21, 1836, in Saint-Germain-du-Val, France, and passed away on January 16, 1891, in Paris. He is best known for his ballets and operas, including the ballets Coppélia (1870) and Sylvia (1876), as well as the opera Lakmé (1883), which features the famous “Flower Duet”.

Delibes was born into a musical family and enrolled at the Conservatoire de Paris at the age of twelve, studying under several professors, including Adolphe Adam. He began his career as a church organist and achieved public recognition for his music for the ballet La Source in 1866. His later ballets, Coppélia and Sylvia, were key works in the development of modern ballet, giving the music much greater importance than previously.

In addition to his ballets, Delibes composed a small number of mélodies, some of which are still frequently performed. He also had several attempts at writing more serious operas, achieving considerable critical and commercial success with Lakmé. In his later years, he joined the faculty of the Conservatoire, teaching composition, and became a member of the French Institute in 18842.

Delibes’ music—light, graceful, elegant, with a tendency toward exoticism—reflects the spirit of the Second Empire in France. His pioneering symphonic work for the ballet opened up a field for serious composers, and his influence can be traced in the work of Tchaikovsky and others who wrote for dance2. His works remain core pieces in the international ballet repertoire, and Lakmé is revived from time to time in opera houses.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was a British composer and conductor, born on August 15, 1875, in Holborn, London, England, and he passed away on September 1, 1912, in Croydon, Surrey, England1. Of mixed-race descent, he achieved such success that he was referred to by white musicians in New York City as the “African Mahler” during his three tours of the United States in the early 1900s.

Coleridge-Taylor was known for his cantatas based on the epic 1855 poem “The Song of Hiawatha” by American Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He premiered the first section in 1898, when he was just 23 years old. He married Jessie Walmisley, and both of their children, Hiawatha and Avril Coleridge-Taylor, pursued musical careers.

His early life was shaped by his mother, Alice Hare Martin, and his absent father, Daniel Peter Hughes Taylor, a Krio man from Sierra Leone. Alice named her son after the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Coleridge-Taylor’s musical ability became apparent early on, and his grandfather paid for him to have violin lessons. He studied at the Royal College of Music from the age of 15, changing from violin to composition under Charles Villiers Stanford.

After completing his degree, he became a professional musician, appointed a professor at the Crystal Palace School of Music, and began conducting the orchestra at the Croydon Conservatoire. His name is sometimes seen with a hyphen, which is said to be due to a printer’s error.

Coleridge-Taylor’s legacy includes a rich body of work that has influenced many and continues to be celebrated for its cultural significance and musical beauty.

William Byrd was an English organist and composer of the Shakespearean age, born in 1539/40 in London, England. He passed away on July 4, 1623, in Stondon Massey, Essex, England. Byrd is best known for his development of the English madrigal and for his significant contributions to keyboard and organ music, which elevated the English keyboard style.

Byrd was a pupil and protégé of the organist and composer Thomas Tallis. His first authenticated appointment was as organist at Lincoln Cathedral in 1563. In 1572, he returned to London to take up his post as a gentleman of the Chapel Royal, where he shared the duties of organist with Tallis.

In 1575, Queen Elizabeth I granted Byrd and Tallis a joint monopoly for the importing, printing, publishing, and sale of music and the printing of music paper. The first work under their imprint was a collection of “Cantiones sacrae” dedicated to the queen.

Byrd’s compositions include various types of sacred and secular polyphony, keyboard, and consort music. Despite being a devout lifelong Roman Catholic, he produced sacred music for Anglican services but later in life wrote Catholic sacred music.

His legacy includes being considered one of the greatest composers of the Renaissance and having a profound influence on composers both from his native country and on the Continent2. Byrd’s works continue to be celebrated for their beauty and historical significance in early music.

Giovanni Bottesini was an Italian Romantic composer, conductor, and a double bass virtuoso born on December 22, 1821, in Crema, Lombardy1. He is often referred to as “the Paganini of the double bass” due to his extraordinary skill with the instrument.

Bottesini’s early musical education was provided by his father, an accomplished clarinetist and composer. He began playing timpani with the Teatro Sociale in Crema before the age of eleven and later studied violin with Carlo Cogliati1. His father sought a place for him at the Milan Conservatory in 1835, and Bottesini prepared a successful audition for the double bass scholarship in a matter of weeks.

After leaving the conservatory in 1839, Bottesini embarked on a globe-trotting career as a double bass virtuoso. He made his first appearance in England in 1849 and enjoyed great popularity for many years due to his extraordinary skill as a performer1. Bottesini was also known throughout Europe as a conductor and directed the first performance of Verdi’s Aida at Cairo in 1871.

Bottesini’s contributions to music include numerous operas, sacred works, orchestral pieces, and works for the double bass. His fantasies on Lucia di Lammermoor, I puritani, Beatrice di Tenda, and especially La sonnambula are virtuosic tours de force that are still popular with those who are highly accomplished on the instrument.

He passed away on July 7, 1889, in Parma.

John Alexander was born in West Sussex in 1942 and began to compose at the age of 20. At the time he discovered a fascination for art, literature, dance, architecture and sculpture and these topics, along with mathematics, have continued to have a bearing on his work. He studied composition with Edmund Rubbra at the Guildhall School of Music in London, and later with Jonathan Harvey and Peter Wiegold at the University of Sussex.

John Alexander has never been a prolific composer, but an impressive and growing body of work reflects a rare eye for detail and structure – each work beautifully crafted and reworked until every inflection, detail and nuance is perfect. Probably best described as a miniaturist, he writes in a fluent, independent and strongly personal style with an intense desire to create music which communicates to both performer and audience alike.

In 1999 John Alexander won the 1st BIBF Composition Contest and was invited to be a judge for several BIBF competitions. He was a featured composer at Bass-Fest 2001, was an spnm short-listed composer for three years, and was Composer-in- residence at the 2004 Rotterdam Conservatoire Double Bass Weekend, Bass-Fest 2006 and 2007 Wells Double Bass Weekend. His works have been performed and broadcast throughout the world and he has written an impressive and unique body of work for double bass.

Joseph Pritchard Waud (1833-1905) was born in Chelsea (London) on 30 July 1833, and in the 1861 census, he was 26 years old and described as “proffesser of music,” but in later census entries, he was a “teacher of music.” He married Eliza Walford in 1858, and the disparity in age between husband and wife, taken from each census, ranges from two or four to seven years. They had three children, a son who died at the age of four or five and two daughters who also became music teachers. J.P. Waud’s biography on a family tree website states:
He performed on the pianoforte, double bass, and violoncello, is engaged at the Crystal Palace in the permanent band of the company also at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, and at various concerts. He also has private teaching… Joseph Pritchard Waud died on 7 July 1905 in Hove, West Sussex at the age of 71.

Václav Bech (1877-1936 was a Czech bassist and studied at the Prague Conservatoire with Vendelín Sládek and František Černý. He played in many orchestras and from 1909-1914 taught at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire, and from 1919-1936 taught at the Brno Conservatoire (Czech Republic). Bech composed a number of method and technical books for the double bass.

Sebastien Beliah was born in 1979 and studied at the CNSM in Paris (Jazz/Improvisation) and double bass with Jean-Christophe Deleforge at the CRR in Auberviller-La Courneuvre.

He divides a busy career between performing (classical, contemporary, jazz), teaching and composing. For 7 years he led the quartet ‘Wark’, which performed at many festivals across France, and currently playes with the trio ‘r.mutt’ and ‘Ensemble Hodos’.

Since 2006 Sebastien Beliah has taught double bass and improvisation at the CRR in Reims and is also an active member of the Umlaut Records crew in Paris.

P. Kellach Waddle enjoys an active career as a composer, orchestral and chamber music bassist, solo bassist, conductor, writer, and concert curator. His prolific output as a composer now numbers over 760 includes pieces for every standard orchestral instrument except timpani.

His output features hundreds of solo and chamber works as well as concertos and works for large orchestra and chorus, and he is especially known for his large and ongoing contribution to the repertoire of his own instrument, the double bass, as well as continuing to write a significant amount of double reed music and saxophone music

Waddle’s music has been heard in 39 states in the USA, in dozens of foreign countries, also featured more than 20 times on NPR and in venues from Carnegie Hall to the White House. His many accolades as a composer include an Austin Critics’ Table award for outstanding new composition of the year, three citations as possible finalist for The Pulitzer Prize, four nominations as State of Texas Musician of the Year, and ten nominations for The American Prize, nine as a semi-finalist and one as a finalist.

P. Kellach Waddle has held many festival and professional orchestra positions throughout, including his current position as a tenured member of the Austin Symphony Orchestra (Texas), which he won in 1992.

As a soloist he has been a featured recitalist at many International Society of Bassists conventions where he has been hailed as “…one of the most thrillingly creative bass soloists in the world” and “…Waddle may be a bass virtuoso instead of being a pianist… yet still with all of these luxurious harmonies and melodies… PKW may very well be our American Rachmaninoff…”

Waddle’s diverse career includes his prolific work as a writer. He was a full-time entertainment journalist for 16 years, is an industry renowned TV historian having published over 3000 articles, and is also an award winning poet. He worked in private casinos as a licensed table games dealer and roulette croupier and holds seven degrees (2 Bachelor’s, 3 Minors, and 2 Master’s) from Cincinnati Conservatory, Rice University, and The University of Texas at Austin.

Katrien Bos was born in the Netherlands in 1978. After many happy years studying the violin, the 16 year-old Katrien found her great love – the double bass. She studied classical double bass at the Rotterdam Conservatoire with Hans Krul and Peter Leerdam, and became passionate about the Argentinian tango. She also followed courses in folk and world music, klezmer, jazz and improvisation, and like to experiment with the extraordinary possibilities of the double bass.

In 2002 she moved to Belgium where she now lives and works. For many years Katrien has played in bands such as We-nun Henk (Dutch folk music), Quinteto ASTOR (Argentinian tango), Balacordes (balfolk), and her own solo composers Bos ‘n’ bass (where she plays her own compositions with double bass, loopstation, violin, toy piano and more) and many others.

She enjoys composing, which is inspired by the European folk repertoire, Argentinian tango and experimenting with modern sounds.