Daniel Basford composer

Born in Hertfordshire, Daniel Basford studied piano, cello, percussion and bassoon and began composing as a teenager. He studied composition at the Royal Northern College of Music with Dr. David Horne and Adam Gorb, graduating with a First Class Honours and a Professional Composition Diploma (PCRNCM). Notable commissions at this time included works for chamber ensembles and orchestra, performed at several of the RNCM’s contemporary composer festivals.
His music has been performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and Britten Sinfonia. He was one of the featured composers on NMC's Great British Songbook, released in 2009 (Hourglass).
An emerging composer writing much for concert band, Daniel’s cantata Night Journey was premiered by Hertfordshire Wind Sinfonia in 2009 to great acclaim, receiving its first performance abroad in 2012. His Processional Fanfare was a winner in the Dallas Wind Symphony’s 2008 Fanfare Competition. In August 2013 he completed his first Symphony for concert band.
Daniel has also completed several orchestrations of Rachmaninoff's piano music, in particular Four Preludes (2011) and the Six Morceaux (2008). His arrangements of a wide range of music - classical, pop and musical theatre - have been performed at the Royal Albert Hall and many other venues in the UK and abroad.
Currently located in Letchworth, Daniel is active as a freelance instrumentalist, playing percussion in several orchestras. He also works as a teacher for Hertfordshire Music Service, tutoring in piano, music theory, percussion and steel pan, and is a busy piano accompanist.
In addition, Daniel has undertaken typesetting and score origination for Elgar Complete Edition, The Havergal Brian Society and United Music Publishers. This has also included writing an extensive article on the use of percussion in the 2011 Proms performances of Brian's 'Gothic' Symphony.
Daniel was the winner of the 2005 Theodore Holland Intercollegiate Composition Prize; the 2005 RNCM Soroptimist Composer Prize ; and was one of three winners in the London Symphony Orchestra’s 2005 Discovery Composition Project. In 2008 he was finalist in the Aliénor Composition Awards for Harpsichord, received an Honourable Mention in the same Contest for 2011, and won 3rd prize in the 2008 International “2 Agosto” Composer Contest.