Professor Stephen Pratt
EMERITUS PROFESSOR
Music
0151 291 3459
pratts@hope.ac.uk
Stephen Pratt, Mus.B., BA Hons., Hon. B.Ed., Cert Ed., FHEA.
Job Title: EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF MUSIC
Department: Music
Email: pratts@hope.ac.uk
I am a composer, conductor and broadcaster who has taught at Liverpool Hope University since 1971. During the last 20 years, I have been variously Head of Music, Head of the School of Creative and Performing Arts, and more recently Professor of Music (from 2003) and since 2015, Emeritus Professor of Music. From 1997-2000 I was also Professor of Music at Gresham College, London, a post I shared with the pianist Joanna MacGregor. I studied composition with the distinguished British composer Hugh Wood. As a composer, I have collaborated with a number of established artists in the UK, but especially with my home-town orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. My strong links with the orchestra began in 1978 when an Arts Council bursary enabled me to write my first orchestral work, Some of their Number (1978-9), which was given its premiere by the RLPO under Simon Rattle in 1980. I have subsequently collaborated with the orchestra and RLP choir for a further four large scale orchestral and orchestral/choral works, and six smaller scale ensemble pieces. As a conductor, I have directed many performances with the Liverpool Hope choir and orchestra which have included performances of major works such as Beethoven's 9th symphony and Mass in C, Haydn's Creation and Nelson Mass, Mozart's Requiem and Mass in C Minor and Mendelssohn's Hymn of Praise. I have been principal conductor of the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral Orchestra since 1983 and principal guest conductor of the Cathedral's Cantata Choir since 1995. As broadcaster, I have worked on BBC Radio Three and Four and as a presenter of music programmes on BAY TV.
Teaching Specialisms
In a teaching career at Hope spanning almost fifty years, I have taught many aspects of the music curriculum. In recent years I have tended to specialise in composition, orchestration, musical analysis and the history of music.
Recent works and publications
The second part of my large-scale choral work Uneasy Vespers (Part II), was first performed by the RLP Orchestra and Choir and vocal group I Fagiolini during the European Capital of Culture year in Liverpool in October, 2008. Following the RLP's release of the CD Lovebytes, which featured three of my works, two further CDs of my work were released during 2011 (Three Studies after John Cage on Warner Brothers and Short Score by Mark Simpson and Ian Buckle on NMC). On Reflection, premiered in October 2012 by Kokoro was subsequently performed by Ensemble 10/10 at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, and recorded for broadcast by BBC Radio 3. Works since then have included Solo Uno (for solo clarinet, 2015), Moving On (two pianos, 2015), Song and Dance (ensemble, 2016), Symphonies of Time and Tide (for orchestra, commissioned by the RLPO) and Telling the Tale (commissioned by Psappha, 2019). Most of my original work written since 2001 is published by edition hh (editionhh.co.uk), and my website is stephenprattcomposer.uk