Brief Biography
Robert Saxton was born in London in 1953 and started composing at the age of six. Guidance in early years from Benjamin Britten and lessons with Elisabeth Lutyens was followed by periods of study at both Cambridge (undergraduate) and Oxford (postgraduate) Universities with Robin Holloway and Robert Sherlaw Johnson respectively, and also with Luciano Berio. He won the Gaudeamus International Composers Prize in Holland at the age of twenty-one. In 1986 he was awarded the Fulbright Arts Fellowship to the USA, where he was in residence at Princeton. He became a DMus (Oxon) in 1992 and was elected an Hon Fellow of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge in 2015.
He has written works for the BBC (TV, Proms and Radio), LSO, LPO, ECO, London Sinfonietta, Nash Ensemble, Northern Sinfonia and David Blake (conductor), Antara, Arditti and Chilingirian String Quartets, St Paul Chamber Orchestra (USA), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival/Opera North, Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, City of London, Three Choirs and Lichfield festivals, Stephen Darlington and the choir of Christ Church Cathedral Oxford, the choir of Merton College Oxford, Susan Milan, Susan Bradshaw and Richard Rodney Bennett, Simon Desbruslais, Clare Hammond. Edward Wickham and The Clerks’ Group, Teresa Cahill, Leon Fleisher, Tasmin Little, Steven Isserlis, Mstislav Rostropovich, John Wallace and the Raphael Wallfisch and John York duo.
He was Professor of Composition at Oxford University and tutorial fellow in music at Worcester College from 1999 until his retirement in 2021. He has been Composer-in Association at the Purcell School for Young Musicians since 2013 and was appointed Hon Research Fellow at the Royal Academy of Music in 2021. His music from 1972 until 1998 was published by Chester/Music Sales and, since then, by the University of York Music Press and Ricordi (Berlin). Recordings have appeared on the Sony Classical, Hyperion, Metier, EMI , NMC, Divine Art and Signum labels.
Recent works include the opera The Wandering Jew; a song cycle for baritone Roderick Williams, Time and the Seasons for the Oxford Lieder Festival in 2013; Hortus Musicae books 1 and 2, a piano cycle for pianist Clare Hammond; The Resurrection of the Soldiers, commissioned jointly by George Vass for the 2016 Presteigne Festival and the English Symphony Orchestra and Kenneth Woods; Shakespeare Scenes, commissioned by the Orchestra of the Swan and trumpeter Simon Desbruslais; his fourth string quartet, for the Kreutzer Quartet; Suite for violinist Madeleine Mitchell and pianist Clare Hammond; A Hymn to the Thames for oboist James Turnbull and the St Paul’s Sinfonia; and Fantasy Pieces for the Fidelio Trio. Jonathan Clinch premiered Tombeau for HB for organ in autumn 2022 and has commissioned a major organ cycle as part of a project with the Royal Academy of Music; the English Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kenneth Woods will premiere Scenes from the Epic of Gilgamesh in Oxford in March 2023.
Recent recordings include a CD of piano music on Toccata Classics, Shakespeare Scenes on Signum; a portrait CD on Metier released in September 2022 and a CD of organ works performed by Jonathan Clinch released in October 2022.
Robert Saxton is married to the soprano Teresa Cahill.
Robert Saxton, October 2021. Photo: Katie Vandyck
Detailed Biography
Robert Louis Alfred Saxton was born into an immigrant Jewish family in London on October 8th 1953. His mother was a gynaecologist and his father (whose own father was Jewish, and whose Protestant Yorkshire mother was a fine amateur pianist), having been a tank captain in World War II, followed by two decades running a small family business, re-trained as a lawyer and became a barrister in his early fifties. His sister Vivienne studied at the Royal Ballet School and is a teacher and examiner of Dance for the ISTD.
His maternal grandfather, Louis Infield OBE, who came from came from Krakow (Poland), took a First in Mathematics at Queen’s College, Cambridge in 1908, and was subsequently a senior civil servant. Louis’ cousin, Leopold Infeld was a physicist who worked as Einstein’s assistant at Princeton. Robert’s great uncle Vivien Vandamm, ran The Windmill Theatre (‘we never closed’) during World War 2 and Vivien’s sister, Florence Vandamm, was one of Broadway’s leading theatre photographers in New York, her collection now being housed in the Lincoln Center.
Robert Saxton started composing at the age of six, and received early advice and encouragement from Benjamin Britten which is well documented in John Bridcut’s book “Britten’s Children”
He studied privately as a teenager with Elisabeth Lutyens, at Cambridge as an undergraduate with Robin Holloway, as a post-graduate at Oxford with Robert Sherlaw Johnson and later with Luciano Berio. He is married to the soprano, Teresa Cahill.
Having taught at Bristol university, he subsequently became Head of Composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and then became Head of Composition and Contemporary Music at London’s Royal Academy of Music.
He was awarded the DMus by Oxford in 1992 where he is now Professor of Composition and Tutorial Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford. He was awarded First Prize for Composition at the 1975 Gaudeamus Music Week in Holland and a Fulbright Arts Award to USA in 1985-86, where he was a visiting fellow at Princeton University. He was Artistic Director of Opera Lab from 1992 to 1998 and a Governor of the South Bank Centre from 1998 to 2007. He is a patron of Opera UK and is president of the Association of English Singers & Speakers. He has recently been appointed a trustee of the Mendelssohn Scholarship. Commissions include works for the BBC (Radio, TV and Proms), LSO, LPO, ECO, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, London International String Quartet Competition (test piece), Nash Ensemble, Opera North, St Paul Chamber Orchestra (USA), Chilingirian Quartet, The Clerks’ Group, Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, City of London, Huddersfield, and Lichfield festivals, Richard Rodney Bennett and Susan Bradshaw, Leon Fleisher, Stephen Isserlis, Mstislav Rostropovich, Paul Silverthorne, John Wallace, Raphael Wallfisch, John York and the soprano Teresa Cahill.
His radio opera, ‘The Wandering Jew’ (to his own libretto), commissioned by BBC Radio 3, was recorded and broadcast by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Singers in 2010, conducted by André de Ridder and featuring baritone Roderick Williams in the title role with soprano Teresa Cahill and released on CD on NMC; other projects in the early 2010s included his String Quartet No.3 for the Arditti String Quartet commissioned by the South Bank Centre and a Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis for Dr Stephen Darlington and the choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford.
Recent works include a song cycle for baritone Roderick Williams, Time and the Seasons for the Oxford Lieder Festival in 2013; Hortus Musicae books 1 and 2, a piano cycle for pianist Clare Hammond; The Resurrection of the Soldiers, commissioned jointly by George Vass for the 2016 Presteigne Festival and the English Symphony Orchestra and Kenneth Woods where Saxton was Featured Composer; Shakespeare Scenes, commissioned by the Orchestra of the Swan and trumpeter Simon Desbruslais; his fourth string quartet, for the Kreutzer Quartet; Suite for violinist Madeleine Mitchell and pianist Clare Hammond; A Hymn to the Thames for oboist James Turnbull and the St Paul’s Sinfonia; and Fantasy Pieces for the Fidelio Trio. Jonathan Clinch premiered Tombeau for HB for organ in autumn 2022 and has commissioned a major organ cycle as part of a project with the Royal Academy of Music; the English Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kenneth Woods will premiere Scenes from the Epic of Gilgamesh in Oxford in March 2023.
Robert with pianist Clare Hammond, 2013
Recent recordings include a CD of Piano Music on Toccata Classics with pianist Clare Hammond which included the complete Hortus Musicae cycle and Lullaby for Rosa, which has had over 1,850,000 plays on Spotify; Shakespeare Scenes released on Signum with his earlier trumpet concerto Psalm, a Song of Ascents featuring Simon Desbruslais and the Orchestra of the Swan conducted by David Curtis; a Portrait CD on Metier released in September 2022 featuring his Suite for violin and piano (Madeleine Mitchell and Clare Hammond), Fantasy Pieces for piano trio (Fidelio Trio), his song cycle Time and the Seasons (Roderick Williams and Andrew West) and his oboe concerto A Hymn to the Thames (James Turnbull, oboe, St Paul’s Sinfonia conducted by Andrew Morley). A digital album of Bach and Saxton Organ Works performed by Jonathan Clinch was released in October 2022.
Robert Saxton is married to the soprano Teresa Cahill.
Robert Saxton with Jonathan Clinch, 2022
ROBERT SAXTON 