Biography
Raymond Head, composer, writer and teacher of voice and piano, lives in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, UK. He is a member of the Royal Society of Musicians, the Incorporated Society of Musicians (Performers and Composers Committee (2004-2007) and the Musicians Union. For nearly twenty years he taught at Sibford Quaker School, Banbury, Oxfordshire.
Born in London in 1948, after studying the piano with Alice Goossens he went to Dartington College of Arts and Rolle College, Exmouth, Devon from 1967 to 1970. He studied composition privately with Roger Smalley and Edwin Roxburgh and visited Darmstadt, Germany for the Ferienkurse für Musik in 1968. After teaching at Bottisham Village College, Bottisham, Cambridge and subsequently in Devon he went to Rome in 1976 and taught at St George's School, Rome and was a repetiteur for Hans Werner Henze's first Cantiere at Montepulciano, Tuscany.
Disillusioned with modern
music Raymond
Head began an investigation into Indian influences on Western culture.
This led to post-graduate work at the Royal College of Art, London,
travel in the USA on a British Academy scholarship and a short-stay
Yale Fellowship. In 1986 he published a book The Indian
Style (Allen & Unwin, London, University of
Chicago Press, 1986) which was followed in 1991 by A
Catalogue of the Paintings and Drawings in the Royal Asiatic Society,
London. He was invited to give the Sir George Birdwood
Memorial Lecture at the Royal Society of Arts, London in 1987. He also
gave concerts and broadcasts in London (during the 1982 Indian
Festival, London), Turin and for the National Trust on the theme of
Indian influences on western music.
Teaching on holiday courses for the University of Hawaii and Colorado in London 1988-1990 re-awakened an interest in composition and encouraged new ideas that were contemporary and communicative. Raymond's music is published by Sky Dance Press. Recently he has had rehearsal-performances of Three Imaginary Scenes conducted by Guy Woolfenden at the Music for You Course, Bicton, Devon. The first public performance was given at James Allen School, Dulwich, London on 5th November 2007. Touching Eurydice was recently played by the Hertfordshire County Youth Wind Orchestra conducted by Mark Eager. A well-received first performance of his harpsichord piece Sema Mevlana was given in January 2007 by its commissioner Penelope Cave who also played all his harpsichord music in a recital at Wallingford, Oxfordshire in August. His flute and piano piece Standing Stones was played on 14th March 2007 by Christopher Britton (Flute) and Raymond Head (Piano) during a recital for the Oxford Research Group international conference on nuclear weapons limitation at Charney Manor, Oxfordshire, UK. His harpsichord music was played at the Stratford on Avon Festival on 16th October 2007 by Penelope Cave. On 4th October 2007, Raymond gave a lecture What Do Composers Do? at the Holst Birthplace Museum, Cheltenham. Schauberger's Dream was played at Guildford High School for Girls at the end of November 2007. On 1st December 2007 the Hearts of England Recorder Orchestra conducted by Colin Touchin gave the first performance of Recollections of Sun and Water at Bromsgrove. The Morley College Chamber Choir under Dr Robert Hanson sang Anthem for Feast of Holy Light on 12th December 2007 at St Mary Aldermary Church, City of London, a repeat of their performance at the Festival of Light day at the V&A Museum on 24th November 2007.
Raymond is a Gustav Holst scholar and a musical adviser to the Holst Birthplace Museum in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. He received a Holst Foundation Award 1984 to pursue original work on Holst and was a Trustee of the Holst Birthplace Museum from 2003 to 2006. On 4th April 2008 Raymond's Fanfare for Gustav Holst was played at the unveiling of Holst's Statue in Cheltenham.
Raymond has contributed many music reviews and articles to TEMPO, The Independent, BBC Music Magazine, The Listener, Early Music, Classical Music and many other journals. He has written CD notes for Hyperion and Carlton Classics, broadcast for the BBC and has also lectured widely in the UK, Europe and America. In March 2006 he published a complete Urtext edition of Holst's Wind Quintet (1903) previously only available in a truncated form.