Patric Standford

He began his working life as a legal accountant and served in the Royal Air Force at 617 Squadron in Lincolnshire before arranging his own admission to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London in 1961, where he studied composition with Edmund Rubbra and Raymond Jones.

Standford held the post of Head of Music at the Leeds University College Bretton Hall from 1980 to 1993, while continuing to compose, write and appear as a regular jury member for competitive choral festivals in Hungary, France and Estonia.

She died in 2011 after 44 years of marriage, and he moved to Occold, a village near Eye in Suffolk, where he continued to work, composing, writing and teaching until his death of a heart attack in April 2014, aged 75.

He wrote his Easter oratorio Christus Requiem for the Guildhall School of Music and Drama's principal Allen Percival and the City of London in 1973.

Christus Requiem brought together the full orchestral, choral and dramatic forces of the Guildhall School for its first performance in St. Paul's Cathedral, in the Spring of that year.

Other choral works include The Prayer of Saint Francis, the Mass for Hildegard of Bingen,[3] recorded by the BBC Singers in 2013, and smaller scale pieces such as the carol This Day and the Stabat mater.

[5] He also wrote a series of lively articles entitled Provocative Thoughts for Music & Vision Magazine[6][7][8][9][10] and a monthly blog for the Open College of the Arts.