Edward Lambert (born 1951) is an English composer who has written chamber music, vocal and choral works, and chamber operas. He is also a conductor and pianist.

Study

Edward Lambert was educated at

Christ's Hospital Christ's Hospital is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 11–18) with a royal charter located to the south of Horsham in West Sussex. The school was founded in 1552 and received its first royal charter in 155 ...

and read music at

Merton College Merton College (in full: The House or College of Scholars of Merton in the University of Oxford) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, ...

, Oxford (1970–1973) where he was the College's Choirmaster and conductor of the Kodály Choir.'Let's Make an Opera', In Touch no.22, Royal Opera House, London January 1991 Lambert then trained as an opera repetiteur at the

London Opera Centre The London Opera Centre, a school for the training of opera singers and other opera professionals, existed in England between 1963 and 1978. It was located in the former Troxy Cinema on Commercial Road in London's East End Borough of Stepney (now T ...

(1973–74) while studying piano with

Paul Hamburger Paul Hamburger (3 September 1920, Vienna – 11 April 2004, London) was a British pianist, accompanist, chamber musician, and scholar. Paul Hamburger was born in Vienna in 1920, and studied at the Vienna State Academy before emigrating to Englan ...

. He went on to study composition under

John Lambert John Lambert may refer to: * John Lambert (martyr) (died 1538), English Protestant martyred during the reign of Henry VIII *John Lambert (general) (1619–1684), Parliamentary general in the English Civil War *John Lambert of Creg Clare (''fl.'' c. ...

(no relation) at the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music is a music school, conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the Undergraduate education, undergraduate to the Doctorate, doctoral level in a ...

(1976–1977).

Career

Lambert spent two years (1974–1976) working as repetiteur and assistant kapellmeister at the Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landestheater in the North German town of Flensburg. There he came into contact with the new music of the 1960s and 1970s. In 1976 he attended Darmstadt composers' course when

György Ligeti György Sándor Ligeti (; ; 28 May 1923 – 12 June 2006) was a Hungarian-Austrian composer of contemporary classical music. He has been described as "one of the most important avant-garde composers in the latter half of the twentieth century" ...

was lecturing there: ''Epitaph'' was selected for performance. The Park Lane Players gave performances of the ''Fantasy Trio'' (1977) and the ''Canzonetta (Sonatina) for Clarinet & Piano''. As a result of attending the Gulbenkian course for composers and choreographers in 1977, led by

Robert Cohan Sir Robert Paul Cohan (26 March 1925 – 13 January 2021) was a British dancer, choreographer, and the founding artistic director of The Place, London Contemporary Dance School, and London Contemporary Dance Theatre (LCDT), which he directed ...

, he wrote ''Ephialtes'' (1978) for Scottish Ballet, ''Invention'' (1978) and ''Maxims, Hymn, Riddle'' (1982) for Jonathan Burrows and the Spiral Dance Company. While serving his apprenticeship in Germany, he also worked at the

Wexford Festival Wexford Festival Opera () is an opera festival that takes place in the town of Wexford in south-eastern Ireland during the months of October and November. The festival began in 1951 under Tom Walsh and a group of opera lovers who quickly gene ...

Ireland (1974–1976); in 1977 he joined the music staff of the

Royal Opera House The Royal Opera House (ROH) is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal ...

Covent Garden, (full-time 1977–1982, continuing freelance until 1996). His Piano Quartet ''Emplay'' was the winner of the

Humphrey Searle Humphrey Searle (26 August 1915 – 12 May 1982) was an English composer and writer on music. His music combines aspects of late Romanticism and modernist serialism, particularly reminiscent of his primary influences, Franz Liszt, Arnold Scho ...

Chamber Music Competition and played twice in the finals at the

Purcell Room The Purcell Room is a concert and performance venue which forms part of the Southbank Centre, one of central London's leading cultural complexes. It is named after the 17th century English composer Henry Purcell and has 370 seats. The Purcell Roo ...

in 1983. The ''Chamber Concerto'' (1983) was performed by Lontano at the 1984

Bath International Music Festival The Bath International Music Festival was held late each spring in Bath, South West England between 1948 and 2016. The festival included many genres such as Jazz, Classical, World and Folk and merged with the Bath Literature Festival in 2017 to c ...

. The ''Mass for Four Voices'' was performed at the

Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival The Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (also known by the acronym HCMF, stylised since 2006 as the lowercase hcmf//) is a new music festival held annually in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England. Since its foundation in 1978, it has feature ...

and broadcast on BBC Radio 3. In the 1980s and 1990s Lambert was involved in the Royal Opera's developing outreach program around the country which explored innovative ways of composing operas alongside children and amateurs (often in collaboration with the education arm of the

Metropolitan Opera The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is operat ...

, New York): this resulted in several opera projects including ''The Treasure and a Tale'', (a fusion of

Beowulf ''Beowulf'' (; ang, Bēowulf ) is an Old English Epic poetry, epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 Alliterative verse, alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and List of translations of Beo ...

and the

Sutton Hoo Sutton Hoo is the site of two early medieval cemeteries dating from the 6th to 7th centuries near the English town of Woodbridge. Archaeologists have been excavating the area since 1938, when a previously undisturbed ship burial containing a ...

discovery in collaboration with the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docume ...

) performed at the

Snape Maltings Snape Maltings is an arts complex on the banks of the River Alde at Snape, Suffolk, England. It is best known for its concert hall, which is one of the main sites of the annual Aldeburgh Festival. The original purpose of the Maltings was the ...

and ''The Button Moulder'' (1989–90), a specially commissioned work for teenagers adapted by Lambert from Ibsen's

Peer Gynt ''Peer Gynt'' (, ) is a five-act (drama), act play (theatre), play in verse (poetry), verse by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen published in 1876. Written in Norwegian language, Norwegian, it is one of the most widely performed Norwegian pla ...

. This production travelled to the US. The chamber opera ''Caedmon'' based on a play by

Christopher Fry Christopher Fry (18 December 1907 – 30 June 2005) was an English poet and playwright. He is best known for his verse dramas, especially '' The Lady's Not for Burning'', which made him a major force in theatre in the 1940s and 1950s. Biograp ...

was produced by the Royal Opera at the

Donmar Warehouse The Donmar Warehouse is a 251-seat, not-for-profit theatre in Covent Garden, London, England. It first opened on 18 July 1977. Sam Mendes, Michael Grandage and Josie Rourke have all served as artistic director, a post held since 2019 by M ...

in May 1989 with Christopher Gillett in the title role. ''All in the Mind'' (2004) was commissioned by

W11 Opera W11 Opera is an independent opera company in London which produces operas performed by young people aged 9 to 18. Founded in 1971, it takes its name from its location in W11, a postal district in West London consisting largely of Notting Hill and p ...

, also to Lambert's own libretto, and performed at the Britten Theatre in London. Several works have been performed in the Newbury area in Berkshire, England, where he now lives. He was musical director of the Newbury Chamber Choir (2002-2020) and in 2013 formed a group called The Music Troupe which has since performed regularly at the annua
Tête à Tête Opera Festival
in London. In 2014 The Music Troupe mounted productions of ''Six Characters in Search of a Stage'', ''The Inarticulate Burr'', ''Stillleben'' (Sonata for Strings as dance), and ''The Catfish Conundrum''. There followed ''Opera With a Title'', ''The Cloak and Dagger Affair'' and ''The Parting'' (after Lorca), ''The Oval Portrait'' (after Poe), ''The Art of Venus'' (2017) and ''Apollo's Mission'' (2019).

Works

* Last Party on Earth *The Duchess of Padua * Apollo's Mission *In Five Years' Time *Buster's Trip * The Butterfly's Spell * The Parting * The Art of Venus * The Cloak and Dagger Affair * Yin and Yang Cantata * The Visit to the Sepulchre * Opera with a Title * An Opera of Daniel * Aspects of 'Work' (piano duo) * The Catfish Conundrum (opera) * The Inarticulate Burr * Shelley's Hymm * The Oval Portrait * Four Ideas for 2 oboes * Six Characters in Search of a Stage (opera) * The First Christmas Tree * Funeral Sentences * Sonata for Strings * Short Story * More or less? for oboe & piano * Laugh Out Loud for clarinet & piano * Brighter Than The Sun (Christmas Cantata) * Rossetti Requiem * Music for 4 Bassoons * Songs for a Florentine Apollo * Speed Matters for violin & harp * Trio Sonata in D * The Crucifixion * Concerto Cubico * du barocque... * All in the Mind (opera) * The Drean That Hath No Bottom (opera) * Te Deum * Symphony of Joys and of Sorrows * String Quartet no 3 * String Quartet no 2 * Praise the Lord * Meditation on a Ruin * Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis * Opening Chapters * The Treasure and a Tale (opera) * Ten Riddles * The Button Moulder (opera) * Caedmon (opera) * Chamber Concerto * Mass for Four Voices * Piano Quartet 'Emplay' * Invention for violin & piano * Fantasy Trio * Maxims, Hymn, Riddle * 3 Pieces for lute * Canzonetta for clarinet & piano * Pange Lingua * String Quartet no 1

References

External links

* Catalogue of work
edwardlambert.co.uk
* Works at the International Music Score Library Projec
imslp.org/wiki/Lambert,_Edward
* The Music Troup
musictroupe.co.uk
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lambert, Edward 1951 births Living people 21st-century classical composers 20th-century classical composers English classical composers Composers from London People educated at Christ's Hospital English male classical composers 20th-century English composers Alumni of Merton College, Oxford 20th-century British male musicians 21st-century British male musicians