Patterson, Paul
Music in Print
A Tunnel of TimeAguecheeks AnticsBrumbaBugsCello Concerto (Cello and Piano)Clarinet Concerto (Score)Comedy for Five Winds (Parts)Comedy for Five Winds (Score)Conversations (Op. 24)Country Search Diversions (Parts)Diversions (Score)Ecclesiastes Op. 19a (Vocal Score)Elegiac Blues (Cello and Piano)Elegiac Blues (Viola and Piano)Fanfares for Great Occasions (Parts)Fanfares for Great Occasions (Score)Festivo (Score)Floating Music (Parts)Floating Music (Score)Fluorescence (Op. 22)Four Rustic Sketches (score)Games Horn Concerto (Horn and Piano)Interludium (Op. 15)Intersections (Parts)Intersections (Score)Intrada (Op. 7)Jubilate (Op. 5)Kyrie (Vocal Score)Magnificat Op. 75 (Vocal Score)Millennium Mass (Vocal Score)Monologue (Op. 6)O Be Joyful (Vocal Score)On first looking into Chapman's Homer (Vocal Score)Phoenix Concerto (Oboe and Piano reduction)Phoenix Sonata (Oboe and Piano)Rebecca (score)Roald Dahl's Little Red Riding Hood (Score)Roald Dahl's Little Red Riding Hood (Wind Quintet)Roald Dahl's Little Red Riding Hood Songbook (Vocal Score)Royal Eurostar, The (score)Salvum Fac Poulum Tuum Domine (Vocal Score)Soliloquy (Op.79)Songs of the West (score)Sonors Op. 17 (Score)Spare Parts (Vocal Score)Te Deum (Vocal Score)Tides of Mananan Time Piece (Vocal Score)Trumpet Concerto (Trumpet and Piano)Viola Concerto (Viola and Piano)Violin Concerto (Score)Violin Concerto (Violin and Piano)VisionsWesterly Winds (Op. 84)White Shadows on the Dark Horizon (Score)Wind Quintet (Parts)Wind Quintet (Score)Wind Trio (Parts)Wind Trio (Score)
Paul Patterson is one of the most prominent composers of his generation. He studied trombone and composition at the Royal Academy of Music. He returned there to become Head of Composition and Contemporary Music until 1997, when he became Manson Professor of Composition. In his time at the Academy, it is fair to say that Patterson has almost single-handedly been responsible for the creation of the Contemporary Music Department. A regular guest on composition competition panels both in the UK and further afield, his devotion to new music, along with his desire to introduce the music of contemporary masters to students (in both composition and performance fields), has resulted in the creation of annual festivals devoted to a single composer at the Academy. He has worked with South East Arts, the University of Warwick the London Sinfonietta and is currently Composer-in-Residence with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and celebrated his tenth year with them in 2007.
Patterson is an important figure in the choral field and his enthusiasm for music both challenging and enjoyable to performers and audiences has produced a number of important large-scale choral works, most notably the Mass of the Sea (1983), Stabat Mater (1986), Te Deum (1988) the Millennium Mass (2000).
His works are performed regularly by leading performers in the United Kingdom and abroad, most popular among which are the orchestral setting of Roald Dahl’s Little Red Riding Hood and the Violin Concerto.
Patterson is a tireless advocate for contemporary music, having organised many special composer festivals at the Royal Academy of Music, and in 1996 he was honoured with the PRS/RPS Leslie Boosey Award.
Patterson was awarded the John Armitage Memorial Commission for 2005. For this, he composed The Fifth Continent, a work for solo counter tenor, choir, brass quintet and organ, which received its premiere in Southwark Cathedral in March 2005 and has subsequently been heard in Edinburgh. The work received further performances by the BBC Singers during the 2007/8 and 2008/9 seasons.
Recent commissions include an Oboe Concerto (Phoenix Concerto) for the International Double Reed Society Conference in Birmingham and a Viola Concerto for the Hampstead & Highgate Festival, both of which received their premieres during the latter part of 2009.
Recent CD releases have included The Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood, narrated by the TV presenter Chris Jarvis, with the London Philharmonic under David Parry, and a recording of the Cello Concerto with Raphael Wallfisch and the South West German Chamber Orchestra (Pforzheim).