A A Owen

Albert Alan Owen ARAM (born 1948) is a British composer and musician.

Owen was born in Bangor, Wales in 1948. His father was Welsh and his mother Latvian (sister of the Latvian composer Alberts Jērums). In 1956 the family moved to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where Owen grew up. He was educated at Alfred Beit, Ellis Robins, and Oriel High School in Salisbury (now Harare), and then at the Rhodesian College of Music (run by Eileen Reynolds). He played in the Rhodesian R&B band The Plebs).

Leaving Rhodesia in 1966 to continue his musical education in London, Owen studied piano with Harold Craxton and Angus Morrison and composition with Patrick Savill. Owen went to Paris to study composition with Nadia Boulanger (whom he continued seeing till her death in 1979) and piano with Jacques Février between 1969 and 1971. Returning to England, he went on to win the Charles Lucas Medal and Lady Holland Prize for composition at the Royal Academy of Music, and was a finalist in the National Piano Concerto Competition in 1974.

Owen taught piano at the Junior School of the Royal Academy of Music for fifteen years, and also taught a number of courses at the Working Men's College for twelve years, and was the Dean of Studies there in 1990-91.

In the mid-1970s, Owen performed with David Russell and Simon Climie as the leader of the classical fusion group Erato, playing classical, free jazz and electronic improvisation. He also performed with Katherine Sweeney and Adrian Thompson in the Corilla Ensemble, and with Sweeney, Milada Polasek and Peter Barnaby in the Emeryson Ensemble.

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