Andrew Downes

Who is Andrew Downes?

Andrew Downes is a British classical composer.

Downes was born in Handsworth, Birmingham. In 1969, he won a choral scholarship to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he gained an MA degree specializing in composition, and in 1974 went on to study with Herbert Howells at the Royal College of Music. Downes was Head of the School of Composition and Creative Studies at Birmingham Conservatoire from 1992 until 2005, when he retired due to ill health.

Andrew Downes' music has been performed throughout the world, in many leading concert halls and cathedrals, and has been broadcast on BBC Radios 2, 3 & 4, BBC TV, ‘France Musique’, Italian TV, Austrian Radio, Dutch Radio, Czech Radio and Central Peking Radio. 17 CDs have been made of his music.

His commissions have included The Marshes of Glynn for the Royal opening of the Adrian Boult Hall in Birmingham in 1986; Centenary Fire Dances for the City of Birmingham’s Centenary Festival of Fireworks and Music; an Overture for the Three Choirs Festival; songs for the Cantamus Girls Choir; song cycles for mezzo-soprano Sarah Walker and tenor John Mitchinson for broadcast on BBC Radio 3; anthems for the BBC Radio 4 Daily Service; Sonata for 8 Horns for the Horn Octet of the University of New Mexico; Suite for 6 Horns for the Vienna Horn Society; Song of the Eagle for the James Madison University Flute Choir of Virginia; Concerto for Two Pianos for the Duo Scaramouche; Sonata for 8 Pianists for soloists from France, Italy and Britain; Mela Kamavardhani for performances by Indo-Jazz Fusions in Calcutta, Delhi and Bombay; Fanfare for Madam Speaker, for the Installation of the Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP as Chancellor of the Open University in 1994; Concerto for Two Guitars for Simon Dinnigan and Fred T. Baker with Strings from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; Concert Overture 'Towards a New Age' for the 150th anniversary of the British Institution of Mechanical Engineers, premiered in Symphony Hall, Birmingham, by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; and Suite for Brass Sextet for the Czech Philharmonic Brass Sextet.