HAVELOCK NELSON

1917-1996

Havelock Nelson joined the BBC in Belfast in 1947 having been educated at Trinity College Dublin and the Royal Irish Academy of Music. He conducted the BBC Northern Ireland Orchestra, the Studio Symphony Orchestra and the Ulster Singers. His compositions were legion and included orchestral works, a ballet, a choral suite and many part-songs, anthems and (particularly) unison songs, song cycles and other solo songs (like Dirty Work and Love is Cruel).  He also composed piano pieces, including the Three Irish Diversions, instrumental works like the Cameos for clarinet solo, incidental music for films and radio and TV plays, and many arrangements of Irish and other folksongs. Among the more popular of his published miniatures are popular nursery rhymes in the styles of Mendelssohn and Rossini.