Michael Stimpson

There are five CDs of Stimpson's works to date: Journeymen (Allegri Quartet, Paul Agnew and Daniel Tong, Riverrun Records); Dylan and The Drowning of Capel Celyn (Roderick Williams and Sioned Williams, Stone Records); Incidental Music and Songs from the opera Jesse Owens and Preludes In Our Time (Philharmonia Orchestra, conductor Stuart Stratford, Abigail Kelly, Jonny Herford, Megumi Fujita, Stone Records); Age of Wonders (Philharmonia Orchestra, conductor Stuart Stratford, Stone Records); and The Angry Garden/Silvered Night (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Hilary Davan Wetton, City of London Choir, Mark Bebbington). A new piano trio has been recorded by the Aquinas Piano Trio and is due for release in 2022.

Since completing his four-act opera Jesse Owens in 2011, Stimpson has concentrated on solo and chamber works, although Silvered Night (2019) for piano and orchestra marks a return to composing for larger forces.

A personal connection with the Tuscan hilltop town of Barga has led to two Italian-themed works, the song cycle Dall'Alba Al Tramonto (2006) for tenor and piano, and L'Ora di Barga (2012) for soprano and piano.

Other major works include The Angry Garden (choir, soli, and orchestra, 2002), Clouds of War (choir, soli, and orchestra, 2005), and the four-stage Age of Wonders (violin and piano/string quartet/string orchestra/orchestra, 2009).

Stimpson's first major chamber work, Sonata for Piano Trio, was premiered at the Purcell Room by the Dussek Piano Trio in 1997, and was described by The Strad as '...a finely poised, lyrical work...a joy to hear'. String Quartet No. 1 (Robben Island), composed after the breakdown of apartheid, was premiered in October 2000 by the Allegri Quartet at St. John's Smith Square, London. The Allegri's commission, A Walk Into War, for tenor and piano quintet and based on the writings of Laurie Lee, was premiered at the Salisbury International Arts Festival in 2002.

In 1980 he studied on the Advanced Course at the Royal Academy of Music. He received his doctorate in composition at the University of Southampton in 1997. During this time he published Café Music for solo guitar (Ricordi) and edited a book and six-part music series with Oxford University Press which included collaborations with Queen guitarist Brian May and flamenco guitarist Paco Peña.

Stimpson has been registered blind since 1977 as a result of the virus Guillain-Barré Syndrome. He works with hearing in one ear as a result of an acoustic neuroma in 2010. He lives in the Chalke Valley, near Salisbury.

Michael John Stimpson (born 1948) is a British composer.