Music Past and Present

Music Past & Present (Artistic Director Graham Williams) celebrated 21 years of contemporary and classical music concerts. It was set up in 1994 as a non-profit making organisation and continued until running out funding in 2015.

Our aim was to encourage people hesitant about contemporary music to listen to recent compositions played by enthusiastic professionals within a programme which also contains more familiar classical pieces.

Each concert usually contained at least one first performance of a specially commissioned piece. We have commissioned over fifty new works from composers across the age range and from the very promising to the very experienced. A piece commissioned from Patrick Nunn for our 2006 series was awarded one of the first prizes in the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters Awards, organised in association with BBC Radio 3.

The concerts broke down some of the barriers surrounding classical and contemporary music by ensuring a friendly and welcoming atmosphere and by encouraging the composers of the commissioned works to briefly discuss them on stage beforehand.

For many years our concerts took place at Jacksons Lane Arts Centre in Highgate. However due to Jacksons Lane's own funding difficulties we were obliged to move our venue to the David Josefowitz Hall at the Royal Academy of Music in London on Sunday afternoons.

We would like to thank all those who played for us, composed for us and attended our concerts over the years and helped to make them such enjoyable occasions.

Composers who have received first performances of their works in a Music Past & Present concert.

1995: John Woolrich. John Hawkins.

1996: Robert Keeley. Edward Dudley Hughes. Adrian Williams.

1997: Oscar Bettison. Lynne Plowman.

1998: Michael Zev Gordon. Lloyd Moore. Elliott Schwartz.

1999: Alison Kay. Peter Paul Nash. Robert Broadley.

2000: Jonathan Cole. Tansy Davies. John Webber.

2001: Dai Fujikura. Nicholas Gotch.

2002: Alan Lawrence. George Vass. Alastair Stout. Enid Luff.

2003: Jonathan Ayerst. Cecilia McDowall. Peter Fribbins.

2004: Lloyd Moore. Raymond Head. Richard Stroud.
Nicholas Jones. Raymond Yiu. Andrew Melvin.

2005: Luke Bedford. Ben Foskett. Deborah Pritchard.
Thomas Hyde. Adam Melvin. Sarah Rodgers.

2006: Elspeth Brooke. Patrick Nunn. Joe Atkins.
John Hawkins. David Gorton.

2007: No concerts.

2008: Maxim Bendall. Andrew Morgan. Naomi Pinnock.
Aaron Holloway-Nahum. John Allan.

2010: Scott Lygate. Joseph Finlay.

2011: Lloyd Moore.

2012: Jonathan Pitkin.

2013 Enid Luff