Graham Garton

An 88-year-old, I look back on a professional musical career as Director of Music, Pianist, Organist, Conductor, Adjudicator and Teacher (still teaching). Composing since I was twelve (winner of a Chorister's Competition) and later winning a Composition Scholarship at RAM, my music is essentially English, influenced by (obviously the Great Masters) Cathedral Music, Byrd, Purcell, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Holst, Walton and Britten. (Occasionally something from Stravinsky and Bartok and Bach creeps in, the latter inspiring me to write weekly Graces - over 250 - for an excellent Chapel Choir of a Girls' Boarding School.) Virtually all my compositions have been performed by the organisations I have worked with. There are some major publications from Armelin Musica, Padua. My forte is unpublished Choral Music and Songs, (my wife is a lyric and coloratura soprano and voice teacher). There are some instrumental and organ works. There is a corpus of works in collaboration with esrtwhile neighbour, the physician/poet J.R.Heron who is now sadly in a Care Home. I have only had Sibelius for three years. My main problem is that hundreds of works from 2000 when i was in Bermuda, are on my old Mac using the Mark of the Unicorn Mosaic 1.3 which, as far as I can ascertain, is not convertible to Sibelius. I have re-set some smaller pieces, but not a Choral Symphony, a Concerto, Sonata, more Song Cycles and Art Songs, Anthems etc. I have been gratified by the number of viewings and print-outs on this wonderful Score Exchange. My MAGNA CARTA CANTATA was performed by Watford Philharmonic on 14 March 2015 and maybe later by Sleaford Choral Society.