About Alan Ridout
Alan Ridout (9 December 1934 – 19 March 1996) was a British composer and teacher. == Life == Born in West Wickham, Kent, England, Alan Ridout studied briefly at the Guildhall School of Music before commencing four years of study at the Royal College of Music, London with Herbert Howells and Gordon Jacob. He was later taught by Michael Tippett, Peter Fricker and (under a Dutch government scholarship) Henk Badings. He went on to teach at the Royal College of Music, the University of Birmingham, the University of Cambridge, the University of London, and at The King's School, Canterbury. He also broadcast musical talks on the radio. Alan Ridout lived for much of his life in Canterbury, but after a serious heart attack in 1990 he moved to France, settling in the town of Vitré, Brittany, before moving on to Caen at the very end of his life. == Music == Ridout's style is mostly tonal, though in younger life he wrote some microtonal works. His works include church, orchestral and chamber music, often intended for amateurs and children. Much of the church music came out of a collaboration between Ridout and Allan Wicks, organist and master of the choristers at Canterbury Cathedral which began in 1964. The six string quartets, composed over a period of nine years (1985-1994), are adventurous and varied in form and mood, but "not so testing as to be outside the scope of the good amateur ensemble".
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