Havelock Nelson

Who was Havelock Nelson?

Havelock Nelson was a composer and conductor. He joined the BBC in Belfast in 1947, having been educated at Trinity College Dublin and the Royal Irish Academy of Music. He conducted the BBC Northern Ireland Orchestra, also the Studio Symphony Orchestra and the Ulster Singers. His compositions were legion and included orchestral works, a ballet, a choral suite and many partsongs, anthems and unison songs, song cycles and other solo songs, piano pieces including the Three Irish Diversions, instrumental works like the Cameos for clarinet solo, incidental music for films and radio and TV plays, and many arrangements of Irish and other folksongs. He made several recordings; on his retirement in 1977 he went to Trinidad to direct a local opera company. Among the more popular of his published miniatures are popular nursery rhymes in the styles of Mendelssohn and Rossini.