
Roles
Emeritus Professor of Music
Faculty of Music
Alexander Goehr is a composer for whom the conventional labels of new music seem increasingly inadequate. A latent nonconformism is already suggested by the essential biographical facts. He was born in Berlin in 1932, son of the conductor and Schoenberg pupil Walter Goehr. Still in his early twenties, he emerged as a key figure in the celebrated ‘Manchester School’ of post-war British composers. In 1955-56 he joined Oliver Messiaen’s masterclass in Paris. Thereafter, he worked as a BBC producer and broadcaster, and was a director of the Music Theatre Ensemble. In 1971 he was appointed Professor of Music at Leeds University, and was subsequently appointed to the chair at Cambridge in 1976. Background apart, however, the source of Goehr’s heterogeneous yet single-minded development lies in a questing musical intelligence and a special gift for elaboration, transformation and synthesis. The artistic imperative is for a step-by-step progression, wherever it might lead, from what is familiar to what is genuinely new.
Faculty of Music
11 West Road
Cambridge CB3 9DP
(01223) 763481
Information provided by:
admin@mus.cam.ac.uk
We encourage all visitors to the Faculty to travel via sustainable travel methods, such as walking. cycling, public transport, or car sharing. We have recently installed additional bike parking to facilitate this and we have live information in the foyer on bus and train times. There is a Voi collection point on West Road, where you can pick up or drop off a hire bike or scooter.
© 2023 University of Cambridge