ALUN HODDINOTT  

Alun Hoddinott was born at Bargoed in Glamorgan, and gained his doctorate in Music at Cardiff University, joining the music department in 1959 and subsequently held a Professorship until his retirement. His works cover a wide range from operas and symphonies, through concertos and choral works to film scores. He has never been afraid to write works ia a more accessible style — his sets of Welsh Dances and Investiture Dances (written for Prince Charles’s investiture as Prince of Wales) bear witness to this and his Folksong Suite is a good example of this. Based on four Welsh folksongs, the work began life as music to accompany a television series in 1962, and is a combination of simple announcements of the tunes and extensions of rhythmic and melodic patterns found in them.