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WORLD PREMIER: NATIONAL CATHEDRAL. WASHINGTON DC
Graham Ashton will perform a new 'Sonata for Trumpet and Organ' by the renowned English composer, Roger Steptoe. In collaboration with the National Cathedral's organist, Christopher Jacobson, the World Premier will be on January 25th, 2009 at the National Cathedral, Washington DC, USA.
Roger Steptoe and Graham Ashton were students together at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Whilst still a post-graduate student of Alan Bush at the RAM, (1974-77), Roger Steptoe was appointed first Composer-in-Residence at Charterhouse School in Surrey, a post created in association with the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust. Apart from an opera, King of Macedon, to a libretto by Ursula Vaughan Williams, this period was dominated by songs and chamber music including his acclaimed first string quartet for the Coull Quartet’s 1976 London debut in the Purcell Room - ‘a well-worked substantial piece in one movement’ (Dominic Gill, Financial Times), the song-cycle Aspects and the elegiac Clarinet Quintet which introduced Steptoe’s music to a wider audience through a timely recording on the sadly-defunct Phoenix label - ‘a splendid work; perhaps the best for the medium since the Bliss Quintet’ (Malcolm MacDonald, Gramophone, 1982).
During the 1980s and early 1990s, Steptoe taught harmony, composition, counterpoint and orchestration privately and as a professor at the Royal Academy of Music, London. Many of his students have since made international careers, notably Rachel Portman, the Oscar-winning film composer. Throughout this period Steptoe’s music continued to receive regular performances by leading international performers throughout the world including the leading festivals in the UK, many major European cities (including tours for the British Council), the Far East, Australia, the USA and South America. Numerous broadcasts specially on BBC Radio 3 were given by the same artists. Steptoe toured internationally as a composer-pianist, made a number of recordings namely the songs of Vaughan Williams with the baritone, Peter Savidge, and the first recording in modern times of Walton’s Piano Quartet.
For more information on Roger Steptoe, please visit:
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