Howard Blake

Howard Blake, born in London on 28 October 1938, is an English composer whose career combines concert music with work for film and television. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where his teachers included Harold Craxton for piano and Howard Ferguson for composition. His interest in film arose while he worked as a projectionist at the National Film Theatre, and that enthusiasm led him to make a film of his own.

His first professional years in London were spent composing, arranging, conducting and working as a session keyboardist, which gave him experience in radio, television and film. As a pianist on film recordings, he worked alongside leading composers such as Quincy Jones, Bernard Herrmann and Henry Mancini. A meeting with Laurie Johnson opened the door to composing the music for the television series The Avengers (1968–1969). In 1970, with his career in film and television already established, he withdrew from the commercial market for five years to develop a personal language in concert music, one that was largely conservative in character and aimed at a non-specialist audience.

His most far-reaching choral work is the dramatic oratorio Benedictus (1979, revised 1985), which has been widely performed. Among his stage works are the comic opera The Station (1987, revised 1992) and the ballets The Annunciation (1979) and Eva (1995). His mass popularity, however, came with the music for The Snowman (1982), scored for narrator, children's soprano and orchestra, through the animated short film of the same name. His return to film came with the romantic score for The Duellists (1977), followed by others such as Flash Gordon (1980) and A Midsummer Night's Dream (1996).

Blake served as chief executive of the PRS from 1978 to 1987, co-founded the Association of Professional Composers in 1980, and was made an OBE in 1994. His legacy lies in bridging the classical repertoire and popular genres, with an accessible style that has reached a very wide audience.