Brian easdale biography

British composer (1909–1995)

Brian Easdale (10 August 1909 – 30 October 1995)^[1] was a British composer of operatic, orchestral, choral and film music, best known for his ballet film score The Red Shoes of 1948.

Life

Easdale was born in Manchester, and was educated at Westminster Abbey School and the Royal College of Music, where he was a pupil of Armstrong Gibbs (composition) and Gordon Jacob (orchestration).^[1] His London introduction as a composer came through a concert of his own music he organised (shared with Herbert Murrill) at the Wigmore Hall on 1 July 1931, which attracted press notices.

The concert included the Piano Sonata (1929), String Trio (1931) and five pieces accompanying recited texts by his sister, the poet Joan Adeney Easdale.^[2]

By the 1930s Easdale was living in London, in a Hampstead bed-sit.

His downstairs neighbour, the poet Louis MacNeice, suggested to him that he should work for John Grierson's GPO