Malcolm Singer (born 13 July 1953) is an English composer and educationalist. He was Director of Music at The Yehudi Menuhin School between 1998 and 2017. Singer studied music at

Magdalene College, Cambridge Magdalene College ( ) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Mary ...

, and then with

Franco Donatoni Franco Donatoni (9 June 1927 – 17 August 2000) was an Italian composer. Biography Born in Verona, Donatoni started studying violin at the age of seven, and frequented the local music academy. Later, he studied at the Milan Conservatory ...

(in 1973), with

Nadia Boulanger Juliette Nadia Boulanger (; 16 September 188722 October 1979) was a French music teacher, conductor and composer. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organis ...

in Paris (from 1974 until 1977), and with Gyorgy Ligeti in Hamburg (1975–76). In 1980 he was awarded a

Harkness Fellowship The Harkness Fellowship (previously known as the Commonwealth Fund Fellowship) is a program run by the Commonwealth Fund of New York City. This fellowship was established to reciprocate the Rhodes Scholarships and enable Fellows from several co ...

, studying computer music at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, California for two years. In 1983 he was appointed Musical Director of the Zemel Choir (a mixed Jewish choir), staying for a decade. Singer was Musical Director at The Yehudi Menuhin School for 19 years: having first joined the staff in 1977 he was appointed director in 1998, retiring in 2017. He teaches composition at the

Guildhall School of Music The Guildhall School of Music and Drama is a music and drama school located in the City of London, England. Established in 1880, the school offers undergraduate and postgraduate training in all aspects of classical music and jazz along with dram ...

, and directs the Composers' Workshop at the

Sherborne Sherborne is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in north west Dorset, in South West England. It is sited on the River Yeo (South Somerset), River Yeo, on the edge of the Blackmore Vale, east of Yeovil. The parish include ...

Summer School of Music. He received the Cobbett medal for services to chamber music in 2012. Early compositions used serialist techniques, but Singer's interests soon shifted towards minimalism. He is best known for his choral and chamber music. Malcolm Miller identifies in many of the choral pieces .Malcolm Miller
'Singer, Malcolm (John)', in ''Grove Music Online''
/ref> ''Fugue'' (1974), an early piece for spoken voices, uses a self-referential text describing the form of a

fugue In classical music, a fugue (, from Latin ''fuga'', meaning "flight" or "escape""Fugue, ''n''." ''The Concise Oxford English Dictionary'', eleventh edition, revised, ed. Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson (Oxford and New York: Oxford Universit ...

as the piece takes its course. ''A Singer's Complaint'', a music theater piece written for

Jane Manning Jane Marian Manning OBE (20 September 193831 March 2021) was an English concert and opera soprano, writer on music, and visiting professor at Guildhall School of Music & Drama and the Royal College of Music. A specialist in contemporary classi ...

, won the Chandos Prize at Musica Nova in 1979. Manning was also the soloist in ''York'', a cantata on Jewish subjects composed in 1991. The chamber music includes ''Bush Boogie'' for woodwind and strings (1985), the Quartet for Strings and the Sonata for Piano (both premiered in 1986) and the piano quartet ''The Grammar of Hope'' (1989). Orchestral works include a Violin Concerto (1974) and ''Time Must Have a Stop'' for piano soloist and orchestra (1976). A recent piece for orchestra, ''London Landscapes'', was commissioned by the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance in 2024. There are also a number of pieces for young people. ''Making Music'' (1984) for narrator and orchestra provides an introductory tour of the orchestra. ''A Hopeful Place'', for children's choir, string octet and orchestra, was conducted by Lord Menuhin at the Royal Albert Hall in 1996. ''Dragons'' (1997), is a cantata commissioned by Surrey County Arts for children's choir and youth orchestra, setting poems by

Nick Toczek Nick Toczek (born 20 September 1950; Shipley, England) is a British writer and performer working variously as poet, journalist, magician, vocalist, lyricist and radio broadcaster. He was raised in Bradford and then took a degree in Industrial M ...

. ''The Jailer's Tale'', a children's opera, was commissioned by the Finchley Children's Music Group in 2009. Singer married broadcaster Sara Nathan in July 1984 and lives in West London.David M. Cummings. ''International Who's who in Music and Musicians' Directory'' (2000), p. 598

References

External links

Composer's website

''Bush Boogie'', performed by the Orpheus Sinfonia, conducted by Thomas Carroll
{{DEFAULTSORT:Singer, Malcolm 1953 births living people Academics of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama Alumni of Magdalene College, Cambridge 20th-century English classical composers 21st-century English classical composers 21st-century English male composers