Bayan Northcott

Bayan Peter Northcott (24 April 1940 – 13 December 2022) was an English music critic and composer.

Born in Harrow on the Hill, London to Roy and Cecilia Northcott (née Venning) on 24 April 1940.

He was educated at Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith.

Northcott read English at Oxford University and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Oxford in 1962.

He then taught English from 1964 to 1970 at Chichester High School For Boys.

Northcott developed an interest in composition and was encouraged by Alexander Goehr and Hans Keller.

Subsequently he read music at the University of Southampton, where his instructors included Goehr and Jonathan Harvey.

Northcott earned a BMus degree from Southampton in 1971.

He mentored other composers such as Robin Holloway and Julian Anderson.

Northcott served as a music critic for the New Statesman, for the Sunday Telegraph from 1976 to 1986, and he was chief music critic of The Independent from 1986 to 2009, where he worked alongside Anthony Payne and Tess Knighton.

He also wrote on music for Tempo and BBC Music Magazine.

He was a director of the independent recording company NMC.

He died in London on 13 December 2022, aged 82.

As a composer, Northcott's output was modest and mainly scored for small forces.

Notable chamber works include the Oboe Sonata (1978), Guitar Fantasia (1982) and the Piano Sextet (1985, premiered by the Fires of London).

Choral pieces include Hymn to Cybele (1983), the Four Votive Antiphons, Op. 7 (2003, a cumulative cycle), and Canticle: The Doubting of Thomas (2007).

But there were also orchestral works.

The Horn Concerto, which took eight years to complete, was first performed in 1998 by Speculum Musicae in New York, and subsequently by the London Sinfonietta.

His Concerto for Orchestra, a 17 minute symphonic piece in one movement, was performed at the Proms in 2016.