Guy Woolfenden

English composer (1937–2016)

Guy Anthony Woolfenden (12 July 1937 – 15 April 2016) was an English composer and conductor. He was head of music at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford upon Avon for 37 years, making music an integral part of over 150 productions there. One of the first productions he was involved with there was The Wars of the Roses cycle of Shakespeare plays produced by Peter Hall and John Barton in 1964, for which he created special instruments. In 1976 he composed the score for Trevor Nunn’s musical version of The Comedy of Errors, which transferred to the Aldwych Theatre in 1977. Similarly, the music composed for the 1982 productions of Henry IV Parts I and II was reused the following year as the suite for wind band Gallimaufry, the first of 15 major wind band pieces. Woolfenden was Artistic Director of the Cambridge Festival from 1986 to 1991. In 1995 he was a founder director of the English Music Festival which became the Stratford on Avon Music Festival. He was the Chairman of the Denne Gilkes Memorial Fund, a charity which supports young musicians and actors. Woolfenden conducted three productions with the Scottish Opera, as well as the first British productions of Nielsen's Saul and David, Tchaikovsky's Maid of Orleans and Liszt's Don Sanche. With his wife Jane he was the founder of the publishing company, Ariel Music, in Banbury, Oxfordshire. As a conductor, Woolfenden was principal conductor for Morley College Symphony Orchestra (from 1968 until 1978), for the Liverpool Mozart Orchestra (1970 1992) and for the Warwickshire Symphony Orchestra (1972 to 2012). He was also music director at University College, London (1977 1979). He was also a radio presenter, the chairman of BBC Radio 3's music quiz Full Score from 1994 to 1996. He married the oboist Jane Aldrick in 1962 and they lived in the village of Sibford Ferris, North Oxfordshire for more than 40 years. There were three sons, Richard, Stephen and James.

In total, Woolfenden composed over 150 scores for the Royal Shakespeare Company. He also composed incidental music for major European theatre companies, including the Comédie Française, Paris; the Burgtheater, Vienna; the Teatro di Stabile, Genoa; and the Norwegian National Theatre, Oslo. His film scores include Work Is a Four Letter Word (1968) and the 1968 movie version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, as well as the 1974 television version of Antony and Cleopatra. There are also many pieces for concert wind bands, chamber ensembles and some orchestral works, a number of which have been recorded. An example is the Clarinet Concerto, written in 1985 to mark Jack Brymer’s seventieth birthday, and performed by Brymer at Warwick Arts Centre on 9th March 1985, with the Beauchamp Sinfonietta conducted by the composer. It's been recorded by Ian Scott and the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, conducted by Gavin Sutherland.