music.wikisort.org - Composer

Colin Michael Touchin (3 April 1953 – 30 September 2022)[1] was a British conductor, composer and music educator. His compositions include two oratorios, four orchestral sinfoniettas, and works for wind band and choral groups.[2]

Biography

Colin Touchin was educated at William Hulme's Grammar School and Keble College, Oxford.[3]

Touchin taught for eight years at Chetham's School of Music, and for two years was Head of Composition. For over a decade he was Director of Music at the University of Warwick.[4] While in the UK he played in a piano duo with his friend Peter Donohoe.[5] In 2005 he founded and conducted the Spires Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus in Coventry, made up of professional and skilled amateur musicians from the Coventry and Warwickshire area.[6] Spires recorded a CD of his compositions in 2012.[7]

In Frankfurt he was Chief Conductor of the Lufthansa Orchestra, an ensemble made up of pilots, flight attendants, technicians and office workers who make music in their spare time.[8][9] In Hong Kong he was Musical Director of the Hong Kong Welsh Male Voice Choir, the a capella female choir Grace Notes, and guest conductor of the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong and Tak-Ming Philharmonic Winds.[1]

His home was in Warsaw, where he died of pancreatic cancer.[10]

Selected works

• A Beade of Amber (for the National Youth Wind Orchestra of Wales)
• Brief Intervals for saxophone quartet
• Choose the Light, oratorio (2012)[7]
• Coventry Suite for orchestra[7]
• Hilarion, oratorio for baritone, choir and orchestra (1987)
• Idyllwild Suite for wind band
• Impressions of Don Giovanni, chamber ensemble (1991)
• in memoriam Cathy, chamber ensemble
• Lambs & Tygers for chorus and orchestra
• Little Red Riding Hood, ballet for youth orchestra
• Saint George of Coventry, chorus and orchestra[7]
• Sinfonietta No 2 for orchestra (1982)
• Sinfonietta No.4 for orchestra (2021)
• Sonatella for piano (1990)[5]
• Three Suffolk Pictures for wind band
• Yon twelve-winded sky for string quartet (1991)[11][12]

References

External links

• Sinfonietta No. 4, City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong, cond. Colin Touchin
• Warwick Music Composers
• Colin Touchin discography at Discogs

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