Frederick May (composer)

Frederick May (9 June 1911 – 8 September 1985) was an Irish composer and arranger. His musical career was seriously hindered by a lifelong hearing problem and he produced relatively few compositions.

Frederick May was born into a Dublin Protestant family who lived in the suburb of Donnybrook. His father, also named Frederick, was employed at the Guinness Brewery. May pursued his musical studies at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, where he was taught composition by John Larchet. In 1930, McCullough Pigott and Co. published his Irish Love Song. The same year he was awarded the Esposito Cup at the Feis Ceoil and as a result of this he was nominated as the first recipient of a new scholarship prize worth £100 to be spent on the further study of piano. In July he took his preliminary examination for the BMus at Trinity College Dublin before departing Dublin to utilise his scholarship in London. In September he enrolled at the Royal College of Music where his teachers included Charles Kitson, Ralph Vaughan Williams, R. O. Morris and Gordon Jacob. He took his final TCD examination in December 1931 submitting a string quartet and on 10 December his degree was conferred. During 1932 May's study was funded by the RCM's Foli Scholarship and in October May was awarded the Octavia Travelling Scholarship. On 17 March 1933 there was a first orchestral run through of May's Scherzo for orchestra, and it received its first public performance on 1 December when it was heard as part of the Patron's Concert. Between the months of May and October May composed his Four Romantic Songs, which received their premiere in London at a Macnaghten-Lemare concert on 22 January 1934. At some point, probably in the second half of 1933, May followed in the footsteps of other Octavia Scholarship winners and travelled to Vienna to study with Egon Wellesz.

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