Gordon Sherwood

The New Listener: “Gordon Sherwood (1929-2013) is probably one of the most unusual and versatile contemporary composers. Sherwood saw himself neither as an innovator nor as a traditionalist; he simply followed the path that felt right to him. Conventions, schools of composition and normative restrictions left him cold. Thus, his music could be described as one thing above all: natural and unforced. In this way, his music manages to appeal to people and to penetrate their innermost being. His music will be accessible to many, and will appeal to many once they get to know it. At the same time, with the knowledge of three outstanding teachers (Aaron Copland, Philipp Jarnach and Goffredo Petrassi) in mind, set at a masterly level of craftsmanship and conceived to carry the mood, these works are in a balanced position between the simple, the musically educated and the completely clueless listener.”

Werner Andreas Albert, the long-time principal conductor of the Australian Radio Orchestra summed up:
“Gordon Sherwood is a great composer. He is a fantastic inventor, has a great melodic richness, is rhythmically insanely interesting. He is simply a very important composer in our time.”.

Gordon Sherwood turned his back on the music business after great successes, including first prize at the George Gershwin Memorial Award / USA with the premiere performance at Carnegie Hall by the New York Philharmonic under Dimitri Mitropoulos. Always eager to discover new worlds of sound, he travelled the world almost all his life and finally found a home in Bavaria. The television film ‘The Beggar of Paris’ made this versatile and unusual composer famous. His Beggar’s Cantante, among others, was written during this time. He composed the documentary opera “The Memory of Water” for the world music group “Die Dissidenten”. In the meantime, in addition to premiere performances and CD recordings (e.g. 1st Piano Concerto and Symphony, cpo/2004), there is also a ballet about his rich life, premiered in 2015. But most of his 143 works are still waiting to be published.