David Fanshawe

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David Fanshawe
ethnomusicologist
, self-styled explorer

David Arthur Fanshawe (19 April 1942 – 5 July 2010) was an English composer and self-styled explorer with a fervent interest in world music.[1] His best-known composition is the 1972 choral work African Sanctus.

Life

Fanshawe was born in

chorister.[1]

At Stowe School he spent much of his spare time learning to play the piano, and when he was 17 he was discovered by the mother of a school friend, a French

baroness who tutored him in the piano even after he left the school in 1959. He started his adult career as a musician and film editor for a small production company in Wimbledon in London who made documentary films. In 1965 Fanshawe won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music, where he studied composition under John Lambert. During his holidays he continued to travel widely in Europe and the Middle East. During a summer spent hitchhiking in Iran he heard Islamic music for the first time and was immediately attracted to its beauty. During further travels in Iraq and Bahrain he recorded the traditional music he heard.[1]

On completing his studies in 1969, Fanshawe travelled up the

Softly, Softly: Taskforce and When the Boat Comes In and also ITV's The Feathered Serpent, Flambards and The Good Companions. His ethnic field recordings have featured in countless TV documentaries, including Musical Mariner and Tropical Beat, as well as various feature films including Mountains of the Moon, How to Make an American Quilt, Seven Years in Tibet and Gangs of New York.[3][4]

During a ten-year odyssey across the islands of the Pacific Ocean begun in 1978, Fanshawe collected several thousand hours of indigenous music, and documented the music and oral traditions of

ethnic music and 60,000 images. Pacific Song, a movement based on this material, premiered in Miami in 2007. This was the first completed section of Pacific Odyssey, a new choral work which Fanshawe conceived on a grander scale than African Sanctus. He did not complete the work by the time of his death.[1][5]

Fanshawe detailed his plans for Pacific Odyssey in an interview with Rory Johnston on Music Now on the BBC World Service, 15 January 1986. An extended version of this including Fanshawe’s recordings and a movement of an intermezzo is on You Tube.[6] Johnston also recorded a discussion in depth with Fanshawe about his life and work, approaching two and a half hours. This is in Johnston’s possession.

The

Ivor Novello Award for the recording of African Sanctus.[1]

Personal life

Fanshawe married Judith Croasdell Grant in 1971; they had two children together, Alexander and Rebecca. The marriage was dissolved in 1985. He married his second wife, Jane in 1985, with whom he had a daughter, Rachel. His younger brother is James, a former naval officer.

He lived near Ramsbury, Wiltshire in England. He died on 5 July 2010 from a stroke.[8]

Selected works

  • African Sanctus, a work for soprano, alto, tenor and bass choir, soloists, percussion and tapes
    • from which "The Lord's Prayer" is also performed separately
  • Spirit of African Sanctus (source tapes from above)
  • Softly, Softly: Taskforce
     - television theme
  • The Feathered Serpent
     – television score
  • When the Boat Comes In – television score
  • Flambards – television score
  • The Good Companions - television score
  • Tarka the Otter
     - film score
  • Dirty Weekend - film score
  • Dona Nobis Pacem – A Hymn for World Peace
  • Dover Castle
  • Requiem for the Children of Aberfan
  • The Awakening for cello or viola and piano
  • Planet Earth – Fanfare and March
  • Serenata
  • Pacific Song – Chants from the Kingdom of Tonga
  • Musical Mariner: Pacific Journey (from the PBS Television series Adventure)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f The Times obituary 9 July 2010.
  2. IMDb
    .
  3. ^ African Sanctus on bellevuechamberchorus.net Archived 26 October 2009 at the Wayback Machine.
  4. ^ Obituary in The Scotsman 12 July 2010.
  5. ^ "How Paradise was Taped" The Times 17 April 1986
  6. ^ "Fanshawe Music Now - YouTube". YouTube.
  7. ^ "UWE awards honorary degree to David Fanshawe". UWE - University of West England. Retrieved 26 January 2016.
  8. ^ "Obituaries - David Fanshawe". Gazette & Herald. 15 July 2010. Retrieved 26 January 2016.

External links

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