Geoffrey Grey

Geoffrey Grey (26 September 1934 – 2023) was a British classical composer. Biography Geoffrey Grey was born in Gipsy Hill and lived on the edge of Dartmoor until the onset of the second world war, when he was sent to Scotland to live with his paternal grandparents. A career as a concert violinist had been envisaged and encouraged by his parents as he had shown a precocious interest in the violin at a very early age. Edinburgh, however, was markedly unfriendly to the English in those days, and its indigenous juvenile population openly hostile to any child with artistic pretensions. In spite of this he eventually went to the Royal Academy of Music and studied violin, composition, piano and conducting. His composition teachers were William Alwyn, Benjamin Frankel and later, in Paris, Nadia Boulanger. In 1959 he went to New Zealand where he freelanced as a violinist for a time until he was appointed Tour Musical Director of the NZ Opera Company. He had a number of early pieces broadcast by the NZBS and returned to England in 1960. He now had a family to provide for and took the job of Director of the Suffolk Rural Music School. This only lasted for a year and then he moved to London wh