Kenneth Leighton

Kenneth Leighton (2 October 1929 – 24 August 1988) was a British composer and pianist. He had various academic appointments in the Universities of Leeds, Oxford and Edinburgh. His compositions include church and choral music, pieces for piano, organ, cello, oboe and other instruments, chamber music, concertos, symphonies, and an opera.

Leighton was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire on 2 October 1929, to parents of modest means, who noted his musical ability early on and enrolled him as a chorister at Wakefield Cathedral. Encouraged by his mother and the parish priest (who helped obtain a piano), he began piano lessons and progressed precociously. In 1940, he gained a place at the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, played at school assemblies and concerts, and composed settings of poetry for voice and piano and solo piano pieces (including the Sonatina op.1a, 1946, his first published work). While still at school (in 1946) he obtained the Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music (LRAM) in piano performance. With the benefit of a State scholarship to study Classics at University, Leighton was admitted to the Queen's College, Oxford in 1947, where he also won a Hastings Scholarship, obtaining a BA in Classics in 1950. After commencing his Classics degree he began to study simultaneously for a degree in Music, tutored by the composer Bernard Rose, and gained the Oxford Bachelor of Music in 1951. At Oxford he came to the attention of Gerald Finzi, an early supporter and friend, who performed some of his works (e.g. op.3 Symphony for Strings, 1949) with the Newbury String players and introduced him to Vaughan Williams, who facilitated and attended some of his performances in London.Leopold Stokowski premiered his overture Primavera Romana (op.14) with the Liverpool Philharmonic in 1951. In the same year he was awarded a Mendelssohn Scholarship, which enabled him to study with Goffredo Petrassi in Rome, where he met his first wife, Lydia Angela Vignapiano, by whom he had two children (Angela and Robert).

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