Francis Chagrin

Francis Chagrin (born Alexander Paucker, 15 November 1905 – 10 November 1972), was a composer of film scores and popular orchestral music, as well as a conductor. He was also the “organizer and chief moving spirit” who founded the Society for the Promotion of New Music. By playing in nightclubs and cafes and writing popular songs, he funded himself for two years, from 1933, at the Ecole Normale, where his teachers included Paul Dukas and Nadia Boulanger, and settled in England in 1936. Ralph Vaughan Williams agreed to be its president, with Arthur Bliss the committee’s vice-president. In his obituary of Chagrin, fellow composer Benjamin Frankel said that through the Society Chagrin “gave many composers (not only the young ones) their first opportunity of a hearing: he had travelled abroad as our representative, had battled with publishers and spoken passionately on the question of performing rights. He had, in fact, become the first person to whom we turned when composer’s problems arose”. In 1951 Chagrin formed his own chamber group, the Francis Chagrin Ensemble which performed and broadcast regularly over the next two decades, including many first performances. His sons are the a