Here encouragement by several colleagues and friends resulted in a growing musical confidence and output: for example Colchester Choral Society (director Ian Ray) commissioned three large-scale works for choir and orchestra.
This work came to the attention of Stephen Wilkinson[3] and was the beginning of a long association with Alan Bullard's choral music, resulting in several broadcasts by the BBC Northern Singers.
[3] Writers have described his music as ‘gentle, melodic, and unfailingly well-crafted’,[10] and showing ‘a real sense of pianistic understanding, economical and linear without sounding clichéd’.
[11] Another critic has said ‘Bullard’s music shows a genuine love for melodic contours and a delicate shading of a harmonic language that is respectful of tradition without being a slave to it’.
As one critic put it: ‘He sees his role as quietly getting on with the vocation of writing music that people will want to sing and play on the everyday, as well as the special occasion’.