Guy Woolfenden

Guy Anthony Woolfenden OBE (born July 12, 1937) is an English composer and conductor.

Biography

Woolfenden was born in Ipswich and educated at Westminster Abbey Choir School, London, and Whitgift School, Croydon. He studied music at Christ's College in Cambridge and went on to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1961 and was Head of Music from 1963 to 1998. He was Artistic Director of the Cambridge Festival from 1986 to 1991. ["Who's Who 2004"] He is the founder of the publishing company, Ariel Music. Woolfenden married Jane Aldrick in 1962 and they have three sons.

Conducting and arranging

Woolfenden has conducted three productions with the Scottish Opera and, in London, the first British productions of Nielsen's "Saul and David", Tchaikovsky's "Maid of Orleans" and Liszt's "Don Sanche".

In collaboration with choreographer André Prokovsky, he has arranged the music for four full-length ballets, which he has subsequently conducted in productions with the Australian Ballet, the Royal Ballet of Flanders, the Hong Kong Ballet Company, the Scottish Ballet and Asami Maki Ballet, Tokyo. He conducted the acclaimed Russian premiere of "Anna Karenina" with The Kirov Ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg in 1993.

Composing

Woolfenden has composed many pieces for wind bands, chamber ensembles and orchestral works, many of which have been recorded.

He has composed around 150 scores for the Royal Shakespeare Company. He has worked with many major European theatre companies, including the Comédie-Française, Paris; the Burgtheater, Vienna; the Teatro di Stabile, Genoa; and the Norwegian National Theatre, Oslo. He has collaborated with directors, designers and choreographers in many award-winning productions.

Awards

His 1977 musical version of "The Comedy of Errors" won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical.

He was awarded the OBE for his services to music in the New Year Honours List in 2007. ["The Times", 30 December 2006, p53.]

References

External links

* [http://www.arielmusic.co.uk/index.html Ariel Music Website]