Nicholas Maw is one of Britain's most admired composers. He is also an acknowledged master in whatever genre he expresses himself, and one whose musical language is instantly recognisable. Born in 1935 in Grantham, Lincolnshire, he studied at the Royal Academy of Music, London (1955-58) with Paul Steinitz and Lennox Berkeley; and in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and Schoenberg's pupil, Max Deutsch. His career as a teacher has included positions at Trinity College Cambridge, Exeter University and Yale University. He is currently Professor of Composition at the Peabody Conservatory, Baltimore. Prizes and awards he has won include the 1959 Lili Boulanger Prize, the 1980 Midsummer Prize of the City of London, the 1991 Sudler International Wind Band Composition Competition for American Games and the 1993 Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Maw has received commissions from many of the major musical organisations in the United Kingdom such as, the BBC, the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the Nash Ensemble, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Sinfonietta, to name but a few, and he has been the featured composer at the South Bank Summer Music (1973), the Kings Lynn Festival (1985), the BBC ‘Nicholas Maw Day’ at the South Bank (1989), the Bath Festival (1991), the Park Lane Group and the Royal Academy of Music's British Music Festival (1992), the 60th Birthday Malvern Weekend (1995), and, the Chester Festival (1999).

His extensive and varied catalogue includes much chamber music, vocal and choral music, two comic operas (the chamber opera One Man Show, 1964, and the three-act The Rising of the Moon, 1967-70), solo instrumental works, and music for children. Maw is, however, most celebrated for his orchestral music: his reputation being established when, at the age of 26, he produced Scenes and Arias (1962) for a BBC Prom, which immediately put him right at the forefront of the British musical scene. This BBC commission is now recognised as one of the most outstanding British works of its decade.

In addition to fulfilling other numerous commissions, from 1973 to 1987 Maw composed Odyssey for orchestra: the single, unbroken 96-minute span of symphonic music which has been unanimously lauded since its initial performance in 1987 at a BBC Prom in London. The EMI recording by Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1992 and cited by Classic CD (June 2000) as the best recording out of a hundred recommended releases in the decade. Leonard Slatkin and the St Louis Orchestra gave the American premiere of Odyssey in St Louis and New York's Carnegie Hall in 1994. The more recent (1993) Violin Concerto in a recording by Joshua Bell for Sony, was nominated for the 2000 Mercury Prize.

Other important orchestral works by Nicholas Maw are his lively and joyous Spring Music (1983), the orchestral nocturne The World in the Evening (1988) and his lyrical Violin Concerto (1993) premiered by Joshua Bell, Roger Norrington and the Orchestra of St. Luke's in New York and the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, under Leonard Slatkin in 1993. Recordings currently available include: American Games (Klavier); Dance Scenes (EMI Classics); Ghost Dances, Roman Canticle, La Vita Nuova (ASV); Odyssey (EMI Classics); Piano Trio, Flute Quartet (ASV); Sonata Notturna/ Life Studies (Nimbus); Violin Concerto (Sony Classical); and Hymnus/ Little Concert/ Shahnama (ASV).

Since 1984 Maw has divided his time between Europe and the United States where his music has been taken up by a number of orchestras such as the Philadelphia, Minnesota, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, San Fransisco. There has been a resultant upsurge of performances in the US from many major American ensembles, soloists and orchestras: such as the orchestras of Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, San Francisco and National Symphony (Washington DC), and the Lincoln Center Chamber Players.

At the same time he is very much a part of musical life in the UK. He had commissions in 1995 from the BBC (for which he produced Romantic Variations) and from the Philharmonia Orchestra for their 50th Birthday Gala (Dance Scenes), and in 1996 the BBC announced it was co-founding a Royal Opera commission to the composer to write an opera based on William Styron’s novel Sophie's Choice. This work was premiered in the new Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in December 2002 under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle in a production by Trevor Nunn.

Perhaps the warmth of the reception in America can be most aptly summed up by Richard Dyer's recent comment in the Boston Globe that ‘for generations people will be buying tickets to hear his music’, which echoes earlier words from the British critic Malcolm Hayes on Odyssey: ‘There are very few post-war works whose substance, technical control, sheer range of thought, wonderful playability and - above all - whose magnificent attitude look set to ensure that they're still going to be played in 50 years' time (and beyond). I think Odyssey will be one of them’.

June 2005

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