The former Tory MP David Warburton, found dead in his Chelsea home, had early hopes of being a composer.
He receoived a scholarship to the Royal College of Music, studying with Edwin Roxburgh, Jeremy Dale Roberts and George Benjamin, later obtaioning an M.Mus. degree at King’s College London.
He went on to work for an M. Phil. and Ph.D. at King’s as a Vaughan Williams Trust Scholar, supervised by Sir Harrison Birtwistle.
Those are some credentials.
Warburton made his fortune as head of The Music Solution Ltd and Pitch Entertainment Group before entering politics.
He said: ‘I got into the Royal College of Music. There I studied composition and started writing music which nobody likes and everybody hates. I was sort of squeaky-gate kind of sounding modern classical music.
‘When I left college I tried to be a composer. I went to Kings as well and did a Masters and started a PHD, and I started to try and be a composer, but you can’t make a living as a composer, particularly if you write music everyone hates,
‘It was art music, like Harrison Birtwistle or Peter Maxwell Davies, who became the Master of the Queen’s Music. He taught me for a while. He was my idol.
‘I had work performed in Covent Garden and at lots of music festivals by ensembles. It didn’t make a living, it just made a little bit of money now and again.’
pictured: Young Warburton with Peter Maxwell Davies
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