James Stevens (composer)

James Stevens (5 May 1923 – 26 June 2012) was an English composer of symphonic, operatic and avant-garde orchestral music, including film and television scores, as well as pop music of the 1960s. Career Stevens was born in London, where he studied initially with Benjamin Frankel in his exclusive class at the Guildhall School of Music. There he won several prestigious awards including the Royal Philharmonic Prize for his First Symphony; the Wainwright Scholarship for “composer of the year”; and a French Government Bursary which took him across the Channel to study with Darius Milhaud at the Paris Conservatoire. There he met Nadia Boulanger, who made him one of her star pupils who received Saturday evening tuition free of charge. He also enjoyed an open invitation to Arthur Honegger’s classes. Stevens commenced his extensive film career while still a student and was acclaimed at the Ealing Studios, where he constantly devised new film music techniques which are now standard practice. Unusually, Stevens never confined himself to one particular musical genre, and took many opportunities to take part in pop music, jazz, films, television scores, and musicals. His musical Mamízelle Nitou