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Geoffrey Burgon, 1941-2010
Composer Geoffrey Burgon died on September 21, 2010, following a short illness. He was 69.
One of the most distinctive voices in British television music, Burgon was responsible for the celebrated scores for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Brideshead Revisited, as well as The Chronicles of Narnia, Longitude and The Forsyte Saga. His film work included Monty Python’s Life of Brian, The Dogs of War and Robin Hood, while alongside his screen career he maintained a substantial body of concert, choral and operatic music.
Geoffrey Alan Burgon was born in Hambledon, Hampshire, on July 15, 1941. As a teenager he became fascinated by jazz and taught himself the trumpet, eventually studying the instrument at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama. There he also studied composition with Peter Wishart, and later received encouragement from Lennox Berkeley. Burgon initially supported himself as a professional trumpeter, performing with orchestras and jazz ensembles, but by the early 1970s had abandoned performing to concentrate entirely on composition.
His first significant recognition came outside film and television. Burgon’s Requiem, premiered at the Three Choirs Festival in 1976, established him as a serious concert composer and demonstrated the affinity for voices that would remain central to his work. Around the same period television commissions began to arrive, including two memorable Doctor Who serials, Terror of the Zygons (1975) and The Seeds of Doom (1976), for which his atmospheric music combined small instrumental ensembles with electronic treatments. Read more…
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