Peter Maxwell Davies (b 1934 )

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies is generally acknowledged to be one of the foremost composers of our time. He lives in the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland where he writes most of his music, composing in a wide range of forms and in many styles.

The power to communicate forcefully and directly with his audiences manifests itself equally in his profoundly argued symphonic works, his delightful music-theatre works written to be performed by children and in his sometimes outrageous witty light orchestral works. His major theatrical compositions include operas, full-length ballets, and innovative music-theatre works, while his many orchestral works include fourteen concertos, several light orchestral compositions, five large-scale works for chorus, and eight critically acclaimed symphonies.

Maxwell Davies is also active as a conductor and has recently finished ten years as Conductor/Composer of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, and Composer/Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester.

He is the Composer Laureate of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and guest-conducts orchestras both in Europe and in the United States, including the Cleveland Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Russian National Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic and the Philharmonia. He is now concentrating his compositional efforts on chamber music, and commissions include the cycle of ten string quartets for the record company Naxos (and called the Naxos Quartets), which will be launched and performed in entirety at the Wigmore Hall in London by the Maggini Quartet over a period of five years.

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies was appointed Master of the Queen's Music in March 2004.