Composers
Edgar Bainton
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Born: 1880
Died: 1956
For many people, the anthem And I Saw a New Heaven, a classic of English church music, is all that is known today by the composer, pianist, conductor and teacher, Edgar Bainton. And yet, if we look back sixty years to the many competitive festivals and choral society events that were a vital part of British music-making, his part-songs and choral works were part of the backbone of the repertoire.
His father was a Congregational minister who later moved with his family to Coventry. His abilities in music and at the piano were noticed early; he made his first public appearance as solo pianist at 9 years of age, and at 16 he won an open scholarship to the Royal College of Music to study piano with Franklin Taylor and theory with Walford Davies. In 1899 he gained the Wilson Scholarship to study composition with Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, and thus became one of the rising generation of British composers destined to contribute extensively to the English Musical Renaissance. In 1901 Bainton was appointed piano professor to the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Conservatory of Music, and after over thirty years of service emigrated to Australia to take up the Directorship of the Sydney Conservatorium.
© Michael Jones
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