Lyell Cresswell

Lyell Cresswell, born in Wellington in 1944, is one of the New Zealand composers with the greatest international reach in the second half of the twentieth century. He grew up in a family closely associated with the Salvation Army, and his musical training began at Victoria University of Wellington, where he studied with Frederick Page and Douglas Lilburn.

His academic career then took him to Canada, to the University of Toronto, and to Scotland, to Aberdeen, with scholarships from the Commonwealth and from a Dutch government programme that allowed him to work at the Institute of Sonology in Utrecht between 1974 and 1975. From 1976 to 1978 he taught at the University of Glasgow, and from 1980 to 1982 he was Forman Fellow in Composition in Edinburgh, where in his final year he took a course in computer music at MIT. After a Cramb Fellowship in Glasgow, he settled in Edinburgh as an independent composer, from where he undertook numerous cultural tours across Europe and the antipodean world.

He was closely associated with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, which premiered several of his works, among them the Cello Concerto (1984). His music responds strongly to the natural landscape and the ethos of New Zealand, a view he himself upheld when he argued that a young country should inspire its artists to take a fresh and optimistic approach, and that the New Zealand composer can forge an identity of his own in the face of the European and American traditions.

Among his principal works are Salm (1977) and O! (1982), the latter written to commemorate the centenary of the Salvation Army band in New Zealand, as well as Dragspil (1994–5), a concerto for accordion and orchestra commissioned for the BBC Proms. A Modern Ecstasy (1986), a contemporary parable for mezzo-soprano, baritone and orchestra, was described by the critic Ian Robertson as a masterpiece. His output also includes choral works, chamber music and solo pieces, which makes him an important voice in the music of his country.