Born in 1934, Anthony Gilbert studied with Alexander Goehr and Matyas Seiber and has recently retired from being Head of Composition and Contemporary Music at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.  A good deal of time in recent years has also been spent in Australia, working with students at the Sydney Conservatorium, where he headed the Composition department from 1978-79, and at the Victorian College of the Arts as well as several major universities.  In 1991 he gained a doctorate in music at the University of Leeds.

Gilbert's output as a composer is wide-ranging, containing not only works for virtuoso performers but also a body of educational music.

Commissions have included two operas: The Scene Machine, for the Kassel State Theatre, and The Chakravaka Bird, a radio opera for the BBC; a large Symphony for the Cheltenham Festival; three String Quartets and a trilogy of works for chamber orchestra.  Among recent works are a series of "musical bestiaries" for a variety of chamber ensemble, Dream Carousels for symphonic wind band and a major orchestral song cycle, Certain Lights Reflecting, to poems by the Tasmanian poet Sarah Day.

Influences of Indian music are evident in several works, including The Chakravaka-Bird, Towards Asavari, Vasanta with Dancing and Upstream River Rewa.

Recent works include Igorochki, a recorder concerto written for John Turner and the Manchester Camerata, shortly to be released on CD, and Ziggurat, commissioned by the Duo Contemporain and performed by them worldwide.  On Beholding a Rainbow, the violin concerto originally commissioned by the BBC Proms, received its acclaimed premiere in 1999 with Anthony Marwood playing the solo part.

• Anthony Gilbert official website
  
• Tempo review by Paul Conway