Christopher Whelen

Christopher Whelen (17 April 1927 – 18 September 1993) was an English composer, conductor and playwright, best known for his radio and television operas. Because much of his work was written for specific theatre productions in the 1950s, or directly for broadcast in the 1960s to the 1980s, little of it survives today, though a number of his scores and related papers have been deposited in the British Library. Life Whelen was born in London into a musical family. He became a chorister at New College, Oxford, attended Worksop College (studying piano and ‘cello) and then at the Birmingham and Midland School of Music (now the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire) between 1944 and 1946 (studying clarinet and composition). After two years National Service in the RAF he secured conducting lessons with the Austrian émigré Rudolf Schwarz, newly appointed to the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra, subsequently becoming his Assistant Conductor. Already interested in Celtic culture (particularly Yeats), the music of Arnold Bax became a central influence for Whelen after hearing a performance of Tintagel. A correspondence began in 1947, which led to a close friendship until Bax’s death in 1953. It was a