David Wynne (composer)

David Wynne (2 June 1900 – 23 March 1983) was a prolific Welsh composer, who taught for many years at Cardiff University and wrote much of his best-known music in retirement. The following year, the family moved to Llanfabon, near Cilfynydd, where he attended the local school until the age of 12. For the next two years he worked at a local grocer’s shop, He continued to work there until the age of 25, even after beginning lessons with a local music teacher and organist, Tom Llewellyn Jenkins, himself a minor composer. In 1925 he was awarded a Glamorgan Scholarship to University College, Cardiff, becoming a pupil of Professor David Evans and John Morgan Lloyd; he obtained a B.Mus. degree in 1928. In 1933, he married Eirwen Evans and they settled in Maesycwmmer. In 1938 the University of Wales awarded him a D.Mus. In 1944 he was awarded the Clements Memorial Prize for his First String Quartet, and this effectively launched his career as a leading composer; thereafter he received regular commissions. At the same time, he began using the name David Wynne for professional purposes. He retired from school teaching in 1960. From 1961 to 1971 he taught composition at Cardiff College of Mus