“Marcus Blunt is one of those genuine British composers whose music has been unfairly overlooked for too long.”

ROBERT MATTHEW-WALKER, MUSICAL OPINION

Biography

A composer of mainly instrumental music, performed worldwide as well as throughout the UK. Also broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Classic FM, and local radio stations in the UK, USA and Gozo (Malta). Two CDs have been released by Divine Art (orchestral music, complete piano music). Publishers: Modus Music, Emerson Edition.

Marcus Blunt was born in Birmingham in 1947. Although around the age of 9 he had piano lessons from his father for a year or more, and made his first attempts at composition, his interest in music did not really take off until he was 14. He went on to study composition at University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, graduating in 1970. After a remarkably wide variety of abodes – in rural Warwickshire, Manchester, York, and London – and occupations – ranging from warehouse packer and photographic processor to department manager at a music publishers – he settled in Derby in 1976 as a teacher of woodwind instruments. In 1990 he and his wife Maureen decided to seek a more congenial environment for his composing work, enjoying the gentler pace of life in rural Dumfries & Galloway.

His output was mainly instrumental, for anything from piano solo to large orchestra, and has been performed – internationally (Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, India, Italy, Japan, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sri Lanka, USA) as well as throughout Britain and on BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM – by artists such as the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble, the Joachim Piano Trio, and Kathryn Stott. Competition successes include 2nd place in the Purcell Composition Prize in 1995 (Fantasy on SCRiABin for piano), 1st in the Surrey Sinfonietta Composers' Workshop in 2000 (Sonata for clarinet & piano), and the Judges’ Prize in the Oare String Orchestra’s 2012 Composing Competition (Concertino for viola & string orchestra) (the judges included violist Martin Outram and composer John McCabe).