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Angela Morley, 1924-2009
Composer, arranger, orchestrator and conductor Angela Morley died in Scottsdale, Arizona, on January 14, 2009, at the age of 84. She had suffered a heart attack while undergoing surgery following a broken hip.
One of Britain’s most accomplished arrangers, Morley’s remarkable career encompassed big bands, radio, records, film and American television. She received two Academy Award nominations, won three Emmy Awards, and contributed behind the scenes to some of the most famous film scores of the late twentieth century.
Morley was born Walter Morley Stott in Leeds, Yorkshire, on March 10, 1924, and developed an early fascination with big-band music. Largely self-taught at first, she became a professional saxophonist at 15 and by 17 was playing lead alto with Oscar Rabin’s orchestra. She joined Geraldo’s celebrated band in 1944, increasingly concentrating on arranging, and later studied composition with Mátyás Seiber and conducting with Walter Goehr. By the early 1950s she had abandoned performing to concentrate entirely on writing.
Under her former professional name, Wally Stott, Morley became enormously familiar to British radio audiences. She was musical director for Philips Records, arranged for singers including Rosemary Clooney and Mel Tormé, and provided music for The Goon Show. Most famously, she wrote the theme and incidental music for Hancock’s Half Hour, including its memorably lugubrious opening tuba motif. She also produced a series of light-orchestral compositions and arrangements that established her as one of Britain’s leading practitioners in the field. Read more…
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