Mark Edgley Smith was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

.

He was educated at Tiffin School, Kingston-upon-Thames, where he began to compose seriously, and went on to study music at The Queen's College

The Queen's College, Oxford

The Queen's College, founded 1341, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Queen's is centrally situated on the High Street, and is renowned for its 18th-century architecture...

, University of Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

, though as a composer he remained mostly self-taught.

His style could be diatonically tuneful, as in the Vancouver songbook, a project of part-songs for the Vancouver Bach Children’s Chorus. At other times it was highly complex and chromatic (The house of Sleep). Sometimes these extremes can be found in a single work, as in the five madrigals to poems by e e cummings

E. E. Cummings

Edward Estlin Cummings , popularly known as E. E. Cummings, with the abbreviated form of his name often written by others in lowercase letters as e.e. cummings , was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright...

(1994), which won a competition for new choral music and were later released on CD. In 2001 his setting of Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...

’s Jabberwocky

Jabberwocky

"Jabberwocky" is a nonsense verse poem written by Lewis Carroll in his 1872 novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, a sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...

, commissioned by the Cheltenham Festival of Music

Cheltenham Music Festival

The Cheltenham Music Festival is one of the oldest music festivals in Britain, held annually in Cheltenham in June/July since 1945. The festival is renowned for premieres of contemporary music, hosting over 250 music premieres as of July 2004....

, was premièred by members of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. Other works have been performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales

BBC National Orchestra of Wales

The BBC National Orchestra of Wales is a Welsh symphony orchestra and one of the BBC's five professional orchestras. The BBC NOW is the only professional symphony orchestra organisation in Wales, occupying a dual role as both a broadcasting orchestra and national orchestra.The BBC NOW has its...

 (Songs my Auntie taught me), the Fine Arts Brass Ensemble.(Fanfares for forgotten occasions), the Tippett Quartet (String quartet) and the composer-pianist Robert Keeley

Robert Keeley

Robert Keeley may refer to:*Robert Keeley , British composer and pianist*Robert V. Keeley , former United States Ambassador to Greece, Zimbabwe, and Mauritius*Robert Keeley , 19th-century English comedian...

 («People of liberated city …»).

He had a daughter, Anna February Edgley-Smith (born 25th February 1983) and a son, Milo Henry Edgley-Smith (born 4th May 1999).

Chronological List of Compositions

[many juvenilia omitted]

• Go-round for brass quintet, Op.1 (1976, revised 1983)
• Campanile for flute, harp and harpsichord, Op.2 (1976)
• Magnificat and Nunc dimittis [English text] for three equal voices, Op.3 (1975)
• Occasional fanfare for brass, piano and percussion (1976, orch. 1983)
• Quinta essentia for brass sextet, Op.4 (1977)
• Fire festival for mixed chamber choir, Op.5 (1977-8)
• The House of Sleep [John Gower] for mezzo and 9 instruments, Op.6 (1982-3)
• Six starsongs for children’s voices, piano and percussion, Op.7 (1983)
• In nomine for 6 instruments, Op.8 (1983)
• Planh for small orchestra, Op.9 (1984)
• Panic relation for clarinet and piano, Op.10 (1985)
• Vancouver songbook, Volume 1 for children’s voices (1-4 parts) and piano, Op.11 (1992-3)
• Nuper rosarum flores [after Dufay] for orchestra, Op.12 (1992)
• 2 × 2 movements for 2 × 2 saxophones, Op.13 (1993)
• Vancouver songbook, Volume 2 for children’s voices (1-4 parts) and piano, Op.14 (1994 onwards)
• five madrigals to poems by e e cummings for chorus, Op.15 (1994; no. 5 revised 2002)
• «People of liberated city celebrate under a cloud» for piano solo, Op.16 (1994)
• Angelus Domini descendit – anthem for double chorus and organ, Op.16a (1995)
• Fanfares for forgotten occasions for brass quintet, Op.17 (1995)
• Welsh incident [Robert Graves] – song for male voice and piano, Op.18 (1996)
• The actor’s nightmare and Sister Mary Ignatius explains it all for you (1996) - incidental music for a double bill of plays by Christopher Durang
• Songs my Auntie taught me – fantasy-overture for orchestra, Op.19 (1998)
• Song’s eternity [John Clare] for children’s chorus (4-part) and piano (1998) - written for the Vancouver songbook but withdrawn
• Notturno diurno for small orchestra (1999)
• Until the day break [Song of Songs] for men’s and women’s voices (each unison) and organ, Op.20 (1999)
• Ludi Sæcularia – five dances for orchestra, Op.21 (1997-99)
• Jabberwocky [Lewis Carroll] – a melodrama for narrator, children’s chorus and 13 instruments, Op.22 (2001)
• Jabberwocky – version for narrator, children’s chorus and orchestra, Op.22a
• The Owl and the Pussy-Cat [Edward Lear] for SATB and guitar(s), Op.23 (2002)
• String quartet, Op.24 (2003-4), commissioned by Heather Pritchard
• … an owld song of Mr. Birde … for chamber orchestra, Op.25 (2003-6)

Reconstruction

• Schütz: Opening chorus of the Christmas story reconstructed from the extant continuo part: SATB, 2vn. 2va. bn. bc (other instruments ad lib.) (1976)

Arrangements

• Byrd: The Earl of Oxfordes march [orig. kbd] for 12 brass and percussion (2003)
• Debussy: Feuilles mortes [orig. pf] for orchestra (1977)
• Ives: Variations on 'America' [orig. org] for orchestra (2006)
• MacDowell: Sea pictures [orig. pf] for orchestra (1983-2006)
• Purcell: Fantazia no. 7 (Z.738) [orig. 4 viols] for 3 guitars (2000)
• Ravel: Gaspard de la nuit [orig. pf] for orchestra (2003-)
• Sweelinck: Mein junges Leben hat ein End [orig. kbd] for 9 brass (1983)
• Trad. Irish: She moved through the fair for voice and 5 instruments (2005-6)

Discography

• Vancouver songbook, Vol. 1: performed by the Vancouver Bach Children’s Chorus/Bruce Pullan on ‘The Chariot Children’, VBCC 9499CD
• five madrigals to poems by e e cummings: performed by Schola Cantorum of Oxford
  Schola Cantorum of Oxford
  Schola Cantorum of Oxford is the longest running chamber choir of Oxford University, and one of the longest established and widely known chamber choirs in the UK. It was founded in 1960 by the British-Hungarian conductor Laszlo Heltay as 'The Collegium Musicum Oxoniense' before adopting the name...
  
  /Jeremy Summerly on ‘Children of our time’, Hyperion CDA67575