​STEPHEN PRATT  Principal Conductor, Cathedral Orchestra 

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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