A composer, conductor and broadcaster, Stephen Pratt (b. Liverpool, 1947)
initially trained to be a teacher; he then studied at the Royal Manchester College
of Music (conducting), and the Universities of Reading and Liverpool
(composition). He studied with the composer Hugh Wood for five years, during
which his work first started gaining national attention, including performances
at the Purcell Room and the Wigmore Hall in London, and on Radio 3. Whilst his
work has since been performed around the UK and abroad, he has enjoyed a
particularly long association with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
and its musicians, with over a dozen works premiered by the orchestra or its
ensembles. The first of these was Some of their Number, conducted by Simon
Rattle in March 1980, and the most recent, Symphonies of Time and Tide, was
premiered by the orchestra with Vasily Petrenko in January 2018. He also has a
long-standing relationship with the contemporary music ensemble Psappha, and
his most recent commission for the group, Telling the Tale, was first performed
and filmed in 2019. For some years he wrote for The Guardian and Classical
Music, and presented on BBC Radio 3 and 4.
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Stephen Pratt holds Emeritus Professorships in Music from Gresham College,
London, and Liverpool Hope University, where he was Professor and Head of
Music for many years. He still retains a working connection with Hope, and in
addition he became a Research Professor of Music (composition) at Edge Hill
University in the spring of 2016. His work since 2001 has been published by
edition hh. Further information, and recordings of Stephen’s work, can be found
on his website https://stephenprattcomposer.uk/

Old Bio replaced 2022

Stephen Pratt
Stephen’s association with the Cathedral Orchestra dates back to the early 1980s, and he has been its principal conductor for over thirty years. A composer, conductor and broadcaster, he initially trained to be a teacher; he then studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music (conducting), and the Universities of Reading and Liverpool (composition). He studied with the composer Hugh Wood for five years, during which his work first started gaining national attention, including performances at the Purcell Room and the Wigmore Hall in London, and on Radio 3. Whilst his work has since been performed around the UK and abroad, he has enjoyed a particularly long association with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and its musicians, with over a dozen works premiered by the orchestra or its ensembles. The first of these was Some of their Number, conducted by Simon Rattle in March 1980, and the most recent, Symphonies of Time and Tide, was premiered by the orchestra with Vasily Petrenko in January 2018. He also has a long-standing relationship with the contemporary music ensemble Psappha, and his most recent commission for the group, Telling the Tale, was first performed and filmed in 2019. He has also worked closely with Pixels, who gave a concert of seven of Stephen’s ensemble works in 2021, including the premiere of In Hope. For some years he wrote for The Guardian and Classical Music, and presented on BBC Radio 3 and 4.

Stephen Pratt holds Emeritus Professorships in Music from Gresham College, London, and Liverpool Hope University, where he was Professor and Head of Music for many years. He still retains a working connection with Hope, and in addition he became a Research Professor of Music (composition) at Edge Hill University for five years from 2016. His work since 2001 has been published by edition hh.

Further information, and recordings of Stephen’s work, can be found on his website stephenprattcomposer.uk

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LEO F BYRNE   Leader of the Cathedral Orchestra 

Born in 1951, Leo started the piano at seven, the cornet at nine and violin at eleven. At fourteen he had his first private violin lesson from Eugene Genin MBE and within two years was a member of the National Youth Orchestra. 
While in the orchestra Leo was taught by Hugh Maguire of the Allegri String Quartet and later privately by Clifford Knowles of the Royal Northern College of Music.

Leo won an open scholarship (in French and Latin) to King’s College Cambridge. A college bursary enabled him to study Italian for three months at the British Institute, Florence, and he then went up to read French and Italian.
At Cambridge he won the Tilley Prize for French, the Walter Headlam Prize for Classics and a Keasbey Bursary. He was co-leader of the CU Music Club Chamber Orchestra.
When Eugene Genin died in 1983, Leo took over the direction of the Oxton and Claughton Orchestral Society and the South Liverpool Symphony Orchestra for ten years. He still directs the Genin Orchestra at Rydal Hall in the Lake District.

In 1990, after gaining an LRAM (Violin Performer) at the Royal Academy of Music, he left teaching to work full-time as a violin maker. He is now head of
Classics at Caldy Grange Grammar School. He makes every bit of his bows, modelled on Lamy and Sartory but using the methods of the modern English
(Hill) school, and today performs using a brand-new Guarneri del Gesu violin made by Ian Highfield of Buxton and one of his own bows.

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Recent and Forthcoming appearances with the Cathedral Concerts SocietyRecent and 

As Leader, Leo is usually involved in any concert with the Cathedral Orchestra

Picture: Leo acknowledging applause from an appreciative audience after a brilliant performance of the Mendelsohnn Violin Concerto on 4 Feb 2012