Arthur Butterworth

Arthur Eckersley Butterworth, (4 August 1923 – 20 November 2014) was an English composer, conductor, trumpeter and teacher. While playing with the band, he caught his trombone in tram tracks and, discouraged by the accident, changed to the trumpet. His music teacher at North Manchester Grammar School, Percy Penrose, gave him much encouragement but his parents and headmaster tried to dissuade him from a full-time career. Five years in the wartime Army gave him little scope for music-making but Butterworth more than made up for it afterwards. In 1939, however, he won the Alexander Owen Scholarship for young brass players and had his first work played in public by the Wingates Band conducted by Granville Bantock. At the time, Butterworth was unaware of Bantock’s fame, or that he was a friend of Jean Sibelius, whom Butterworth revered, but Bantock was nevertheless encouraging. At the Royal Manchester College of Music (now the Royal Northern College of Music), Butterworth studied composition with Richard Hall and also learned the trumpet and conducting. He studied composition with Ralph Vaughan Williams after writing to the composer in 1950, requesting lessons. he also played as a freel