Rory Boyle (composer)

Rory Boyle is a Scottish composer and currently Professor of Composition at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

Boyle was born in Ayr, Scotland on 9 March 1951. His father was a Major in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and his mother a very talented amateur pianist and accordionist. His parents separated when he was 5 years old, and he and his sister were brought up by their mother, firstly in Edinburgh and then on a farm in Stirlingshire. He was a chorister at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor and then won a music bursary to Eton College.

Encouraged by his music teacher Boyle studied composition with Frank Spedding at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland). He also studied piano (with Lawrence Glover), organ (with George McPhee) and harpsichord (with Andrew Davis who, at the time, was associate conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra) during his studies there.

He then went on to win a Caird Scholarship to study privately with Lennox Berkeley in London. As the conductor Nicholas Cleobury wrote in the 1998 Proms programme, “Boyle chose his teachers well: Spedding encouraged his individual voice; Berkeley reduced wastage and honed his orchestration”.

Whilst still a student at the RSAMD Boyle won the BBC Scottish Composers’ Prize with his first orchestral score and further important awards followed. These included two Royal Philharmonic Prizes, as well as the Zaiks Prize in the International Competition set up in memory of Kazimierz Serocki, one of the leading figures in the Polish avant garde, for his orchestral score Winter Music which was premièred in Cracow in 1987.

His list of works covers most genres and he has received commissions from many societies, festivals and organisations. He has also written for many leading performers including Evelyn Glennie ( Marimba Concerto ), Michael Chance ( Lord Lundy ), Nicholas Daniel ( Oboe Concerto – Sorella ), David Hubbard ( Bassoon Concerto – That Blessed Wood ), Fine Arts Brass Quintet ( Giochi di Sospiri and Elegy for the Black Bitch – nominated for a British Composer Award in 2005), and Karen Cargill ( Watching Over You ).

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