Name Bayan Northcott Role Composer | Education University of Oxford | |
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Similar People Hans Keller, Nicholas Maw, Alexander Goehr, Charlotte Bray, John McCabe | ||
Bayan Peter Northcott (born 24 April 1940) is an English composer and music critic.
Born in Harrow on the Hill (London), Northcott read English at Oxford University and took a Bachelor of Arts degree from Oxford in 1962. He then taught English from 1964 to 1970. On his own, Northcott developed an interest in composition, and received additional encouragement from Alexander Goehr and Hans Keller. He subsequently read music at the University of Southampton, where his instructors included Goehr and Jonathan Harvey. Northcott earned a BMus degree from Southampton in 1971. In turn, Northcott has mentored other composers such as Robin Holloway and Julian Anderson.
Northcott has served as a music critic for the New Statesman, for the Sunday Telegraph from 1976 to 1986, and he was chief music critic of The Independent from 1986 to 2009. He has also written on music for Tempo and BBC Music Magazine. He is a director of the independent recording company NMC. A selection of his writings was published in the volume The Way We Listen Now in 2009.