Edward Gregson
Recognized globally, Edward Gregson has built a strong reputation as a composer, with his works performed, broadcast, and recorded across the world. His compositions span a wide range of genres, including orchestral, chamber, instrumental, and choral music, and he has made particularly significant contributions to wind and brass repertoire. In 2025, Chandos Records released A Vision in a Dream, featuring three of his concertos alongside two memorial works.
Gregson was born in July 1945 in Sunderland in northern England. He began piano lessons at age nine and soon commenced his own compositional efforts. He entered the Royal Academy of Music in 1963, where he studied composition under Alan Bush and piano with Russell Chester. During his four years at the Academy, he won five prizes for composition. In his final year, he composed a Concertante for piano and brass band, which he performed himself as soloist at the Royal Festival Hall. Upon graduation in 1967, he completed a Bachelor of Music with Honours degree at London University. His early professional career involved teaching music in London primary schools from 1967 to 1968 before establishing himself primarily as a composer. His breakthrough came with the Brass Quintet (1967), which received broadcasts and recordings by major ensembles, including the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble and the Hallé Brass Consort. This early success launched a compositional trajectory spanning five decades and over 100 works. His orchestral output developed significantly across the 1970s and '80s. Major orchestral works include Music for Chamber Orchestra (1968), Metamorphoses (1979), Contrasts (1983, later revised in 2001 as Contrasts, a Concerto for Orchestra), and Blazon (1991). A distinctive aspect of his compositional legacy emerged through his systematic composition of concertos for various instruments, beginning with the Horn Concerto in 1971. Over subsequent decades, he composed concertos for a dozen more instruments, continuing this series into the 2020s.
Gregson's academic career advanced substantially when he joined Goldsmiths College, University of London in 1976 as a lecturer in composition, eventually achieving the rank of Professor of Music in 1994. From 1996 to 2008, he served as Principal of the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. Throughout his career, he has served on multiple boards, including the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, the Performing Right Society (as Writer Director), and Chetham's School of Music. His compositional output demonstrates sustained creative energy. In 2023, he completed the Viola Concerto "Three Goddesses." In 2024, he composed two memorial works: A Song for Sue, a revision of material from 1966 honoring his wife, and A Song for Bram, written in memory of conductor Bramwell Tovey. A Vision in a Dream captured these recent works alongside earlier concertos, establishing a record of his artistic achievement across the decades. ~ Prince Iwundu, Rovi
More Info
