31 Facts About David Bedford

David Vickerman Bedford was an English composer and musician.

David Bedford wrote and played both popular and classical music.

David Bedford was the brother of the conductor Steuart Bedford, the grandson of the composer, painter and author Herbert Bedford and the composer Liza Lehmann, and the son of Leslie Bedford, an inventor, and Lesley Duff, a soprano opera singer.

From 1969 to 1981, Bedford was Composer in Residence at Queen's College, London.

David Bedford was born in Hendon, London to Leslie David Bedford, the director of engineering for the guided weapons division of the British Aircraft Corporation, and Lesley Duff, a soprano singer who worked with the English Opera Group.

David Bedford was educated at Lancing College in West Sussex.

David Bedford studied music at the Royal Academy of Music under Lennox Berkeley, and later in Venice under Luigi Nono.

David Bedford was a former president of the Severnside Composers' Alliance and a founding Trustee of the PRS for Music Foundation, which supports the composition of new pieces.

In 1969, David Bedford was engaged to orchestrate Kevin Ayers' album Joy of a Toy, on which he played keyboards.

On that album, in addition to organ and piano, David Bedford plays accordion, marimbaphone and guitar.

David Bedford contributed to later Kevin Ayers albums as keyboard player and orchestral arranger.

Coxhill later re-recorded the play without David Bedford and released it as a 12-inch single, stating in the liner notes that he would have preferred to record it with David Bedford, who was unavailable.

The first album to consist entirely of David Bedford compositions was Nurses Song with Elephants, recorded at the Marquee Studios, and released in 1972 on John Peel's Dandelion label.

David Bedford collaborated even more extensively with Mike Oldfield, The Whole World's bass guitarist.

David Bedford orchestrated and conducted Oldfield's The Orchestral Tubular Bells album, an adaptation of Tubular Bells, the record that had given the Virgin record label its first major success in 1973.

David Bedford orchestrated Oldfield's follow-up album-length composition, Hergest Ridge as The Orchestral Hergest Ridge, which was performed live and recorded for radio broadcast from concert performances twice, once in 1974 by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with Steve Hillage on guitar, and once in 1976 by the Scottish National Orchestra, again with Hillage on guitar, although Andy Summers had played on other performances that year.

David Bedford provided vocals and piano for Oldfield's cover versions of more old music hall numbers, Don Alfonso and Speak, collaborated with Oldfield on a piece titled "First Excursion" for Oldfield's box set compilation Boxed, and orchestrated Oldfield's soundtrack for The Killing Fields.

David Bedford conducted an orchestra during Harper's live concerts, including the Valentine's Day launch of the album, the concert later released as Flashes from the Archives of Oblivion and featuring, among others, Keith Moon.

David Bedford worked with a wide variety of other artists, including A-ha, Billy Bragg, Camel, Elvis Costello, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Madness, Andy Summers, Alan White and Robert Wyatt.

David Bedford continued to set music to Patchen's poems throughout his career, including O Now the Drenched Land Wakes and The Great Birds, released by Deutsche Grammophon on one of their Avant Garde series of albums in 1968, and Instructions For Angels, released by Virgin in 1977.

David Bedford composed a number of works for wind orchestra, beginning with Sun Paints Rainbows on the Vast Waves in 1982, commissioned by the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.

David Bedford is noted for the large amount of educational music he wrote for children.

David Bedford took a similar approach for his 1972 work, With 100 Kazoos, in which an instrumental ensemble is joined by the audience who are invited to play kazoos.

The piece was intended to be conducted by Pierre Boulez, but he rejected it, with David Bedford stating "He rejected my piece on the grounds that audiences would be stupid and would fool about with their kazoos in the other pieces too".

David Bedford composed a 35-minute choral suite, commissioned by the BBC, "Twelve Hours of Sunset", based on Roy Harper's song of the same name, from his 1974 album Valentine, which David Bedford orchestrated.

David Bedford continued to combine skilled and non-skilled musicians in other works such as Seascapes, combining a full symphony orchestra with school children, and Stories from the Dreamtime, written for 40 deaf children and orchestra, as well as unconventional performance techniques such as requiring a singer to scream into a piano.

The Tentacles of the Dark Nebula has words taken from Arthur C Clarke's short story Transcience, recorded by tenor Peter Pears with Bedford conducting the London Sinfonietta.

David Bedford's music has been described as modernist, avant-garde and experimental.

David Bedford was known for his use of atonality, harmonic stasis, and rich timbre.

David Bedford enjoyed sci-fi, was a keen astronomer and enjoyed cricket, all of which inspired his work.

David Bedford died of lung cancer in October 2011 and was survived by his third wife, his seven children, and his brother Steuart.