David Wynne (composer)

David Wynne (2 June 1900 – 23 March 1983) was a prolific Welsh composer, who taught for many years at Cardiff University and wrote much of his best-known music in retirement.

Christened David William Thomas, he was born at Nantmoch Uchaf farm in Penderyn, a village near Hirwaun, the son of a shepherd named Philip Thomas and his wife Elizabeth. The following year, the family moved to Llanfabon, near Cilfynydd, where he attended the local school until the age of 12. For the next two years he worked at a local grocer's shop, then at the age of 14 he went down the pit at the Albion Colliery, Cilfynydd, where one of Britain's worst mining disasters had occurred in 1894. He continued to work there until the age of 25, even after beginning lessons with a local music teacher and organist, Tom Llewellyn Jenkins, himself a minor composer. In 1925 he was awarded a Glamorgan Scholarship to University College, Cardiff, entering directly into the third year of music studies, becoming a pupil of Professor David Evans and John Morgan Lloyd; he obtained a B.Mus. degree in 1928. From there he proceeded to the University of Bristol, where he spent a year in teacher training. In 1929 he was appointed Head of Music at Lewis School Pengam, a grammar school for boys, becoming the first full-time secondary school music teacher in Wales. His students at Pengam included composers Robert Smith and Mervyn Burtch. In 1933, he married Eirwen Evans and they settled in Maesycwmmer. In 1938 the University of Wales awarded him a D.Mus. In 1944 he was awarded the Clements Memorial Prize for his First String Quartet, and this effectively launched his career as a leading composer; thereafter he received regular commissions. At the same time, he began using the name David Wynne for professional purposes. He retired from school teaching in 1960. From 1961 to 1971 he taught composition at Cardiff College of Music and Drama (now the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama), and from 1970 to 1979 in the Department of Music at Cardiff University. In 1983, he died suddenly at his home in Pencoed, whilst working on his Fourth Symphony.

...
Wikipedia