Gwyn Arch

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Gwyn Arch
Born4 May 1931 Edit this on Wikidata
Southampton Edit this on Wikidata
DiedJune 2021 Edit this on Wikidata (aged 89–90)
OccupationComposer, choir director Edit this on Wikidata
Awards
  • Member of the Order of the British Empire Edit this on Wikidata

Gwyn Arch MBE (4 May 1931 – June 2021) was a British composer and choir director.

Early life[]

Arch was born in Southampton on 5 April 1931, to a Welsh father.[1] He was raised in Birmingham and then Ipswich, where he attended secondary school.[1] After national service he studied English at Selwyn College, University of Cambridge.[2][3] He played in jazz bands there and at University of Oxford,[3] where he took a postgraduate diploma in education.[2]

Career[]

Arch taught English at Rickmansworth Grammar School for nine years, studying musical composition at Trinity College London in his spare time.[3]

He was Director of Music at Bulmershe College from 1964 to 1985.[4][5] In the 1960s he arranged music for BBC Home Service radio programmes for schools, and in the 1970s, he made several appearances, as a conductor, on the BBC Television programme Seeing and Believing.[6]

He was musical director of the South Chiltern Choral Society for almost 50 years, until 2014.[7] In 1971 he established the Reading Male Voice Choir and served as the choir's musical director until 2015.[5]

He was a Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music, a Composition Fellow of Trinity College London, and for ten years an Associated Board examiner.[5]

His oeuvre includes many choral works and songs, arranged for mixed and male choirs.[5]

He marketed his arrangements for male choirs, as sheet music via his company Grove Music.[a][8]

Arch was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2006 Birthday Honours, for services to music in Berkshire.[5][9]

Personal life[]

Arch met Jane, subsequently a head teacher, when he was at Oxford University, where he was musical director of the Experimental Theatre Club and she was in the choir.[4] They married two years later.[4] Their son David Arch is also a conductor, arranger and composer and is the musical director on the BBC Television show Strictly Come Dancing.[4] They also had a younger son, Jonathan, and moved to Sonning Common in 1964.[4]

Arch's death was announced on 8 June 2021.[10]

Notes[]

  1. ^ Not to be confused with the Grove Dictionary of Music.

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b "Gwyn Arch | composer". www.hebu-music.com. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b "The man who made music come alive". Henley Standard. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b c "Gwyn Arch". Good Music. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e "Our boy's the musical star of Strictly but hates fame". Henley Standard. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e "Gwyn Arch - arranger, choral director biography". Singers.com. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  6. ^ "Gwyn Arch". BBC Genome. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  7. ^ "Fond farewell to retiring musical director of the South Chiltern Choral Society". BerkshireLive. 11 July 2014. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  8. ^ "TTBB Music for Male Voice Choirs". Grove Music. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  9. ^ "No. 58014". The London Gazette (1st supplement). 17 June 2006. p. 14.
  10. ^ "Sad to learn that the composer Gwyn Arch has died". Banks Music. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
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