Michael Stimpson


Michael John Stimpson is a British composer.

Early life and education

Stimpson was brought up in Hammersmith and Wimbledon. His first degree was in Botany and Zoology, but immediately on completion he turned to music, and more specifically, the classical guitar. His twenties were taken up with study, examinations, concerts, and teaching, and his first contribution to a book.
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 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.

Career

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, 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.
Other major works include The Angry Garden, Clouds of War, and the four-stage Age of Wonders.
A personal connection with the Tuscan hilltop town of Barga has led to two Italian-themed works, the song cycle Dall'Alba Al Tramonto for tenor and piano, and L'Ora di Barga for soprano and piano.
Since completing his four-act opera Jesse Owens in 2011, Stimpson has concentrated on solo and chamber works, although Silvered Night for piano and orchestra marks a return to composing for larger forces.
There are seven CDs of Stimpson's works to date: Journeymen ; Dylan and The Drowning of Capel Celyn ; Incidental Music and Songs from the opera Jesse Owens and Preludes In Our Time ; Age of Wonders ; The Angry Garden/Silvered Night ; Reflections ; When The Light Shines. A brass quintet was recorded by Onyx Brass in January 2025 and is due for release before the end of the year.

Personal life

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.

Selected compositions

Orchestral and choral

Age of Wonders - An Entangled Bank
Age of Wonders - Transmutations
Clouds of War
Concerto for Oboe
Jesse Owens - opera
Silvered Night
Songs of Innocence and Experience
The Angry Garden
The Ninth Hour: Four Latin Motets

Chamber

Age of Wonders - String Quartet No.2
And Then The Mist Rose
A Walk Into War
Illusive Years
Songs from the opera Jesse Owens
Suite Gromignana
The Sun and the Moon

Solo and duo

Age of Wonders - The Man Who Walked With Henslow
Cafe Music
Dall'Alba al Tramonto
Drawings from the Shell
Dylan
Fanfara - il baccio della luce
Faulstone Hollow
Five Miniatures
L'Ora di Barga
Preludes In Our Time
Sonatina Pour le Vent
Tales from the 15th Floor
The Balancing of Opposites
The Drowning of Capel Celyn
The Haze of Time
The Stars Have Withdrawn Their Shining
Three Variants on a Blue
Two Folk Pieces
Variations on Papaver Rhoeas