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Adam Francis Pounds (born 25 November 1954) is an English composer and conductor.

Early life and education
Pounds was born in Walthamstow, east London, the youngest son of Annie Margaret Pounds (neé Crisp) and Edward Arthur Pounds. He was educated at William Morris High School in Walthamstow, before gaining a place at the London College of Music, where his studies focused principally upon classical guitar, oboe, composition and conducting, the latter with Christopher Fry. During this period, Pounds also studied composition privately with Sir Lennox Berkeley, winning the Lillian Hunt Memorial prize for composition with an oboe quartet.

Pounds subsequently attended Goldsmiths' College, part of the University of London, graduating with a Bachelor of Music (BMus (Hons)) degree.

He has since returned to higher education, obtaining a master’s degree in music education from Trinity Hall, Cambridge where his research focus was the decline of classical music provision in state schools.

Current and former posts
Pounds has held a number of posts and has founded several orchestras and musical ensembles during his musical career.

While a student, Pounds worked both as an administrative assistant at ‘Crescendo’ jazz magazine and as a music copyist for the BBC. He prepared parts for major works by Birtwistle, Alwyn and others for performance by the BBC Symphony Orchestra,continuing this work after leaving music college.

In 1981, he formed the Nelson Orchestra in the London Borough of Waltham Forest, where he also served as Chairman for Music on the Arts Council. The Nelson Orchestra performed for 25 years, during which time it regularly supported the Waltham Forest ‘Young Musician of the Year’ competition by providing orchestral accompaniment for the final. The Nelson Orchestra was a full size symphony orchestra that performed in Walthamstow Assembly Hall and drew its players from the past students of the Waltham Forest Senior Schools Orchestra, as well as from Redbridge and beyond. They gave several premieres of Pounds’ earlier work including his First Symphony (1983), his Northern Picture and Life Cycle.

At around the same time, Pounds also established the London Prometheus Orchestra in Highgate, London. This was a chamber orchestra that performed a largely Baroque and Classical repertoire, consisting of professionals and members of the National Centre for Orchestral Studies.

Pounds moved to Cambridge in 2000 and in 2007 he formed the Academy of Great St. Mary’s, which gives large-scale performances in the University Church of Great St. Mary’s (Church of St Mary the Great, Cambridge). Pounds is the conductor of the Academy, which has also given debuts to several of his later works.

Since 2008, Pounds has been the conductor of the Stapleford Choral Society.

Between 2015 and 2021, Pounds also served as chairman of the Lennox Berkeley Society, which encourages the performance, study, recording and broadcast of his former tutor’s work.

Musical Style and Influences
Pounds’ compositional style is in the symphonic tradition and although he has used some ‘modern’ methods (including serialism and minimalism), a clear line can be traced through composers such as Shostakovich, Hindemith, Vaughan Williams and Bartok. His time studying with Lennox Berkeley was also significant, enabling Pounds to refine his form and find direction.

Pounds believes that music must communicate with the listener and take them on a journey without compromising the development of the art form. He is particularly interested in film music and how it enhances the audience’s perceptions [and emotional responses].

Compositions
After an early success with his Sinfonietta performed by the Essex Chamber Orchestra in 1978 and subsequently by the Ealing Symphony Orchestra, Pounds composed his first major orchestral piece the Gaelic Triptych (1983). The work is in three movements and was inspired by a holiday in the Scottish Highlands. The second movement, Corgarff Castle, evokes a misty picture of a lonely and neglected garrison. The finale, subtitled Drumossie Moor, is a musical tribute to the Scots who were butchered in the battle of Culloden. The movement ends fittingly with an orchestration of an ancient Scots bagpipe tune.

The Festival Overture was a response to a commission from Waltham Forest and the Greater London Arts Council in 1987. This one movement work is an exciting and rhythmic piece, which has dynamic brass and percussion parts.

Like many of his other works, Northern Picture (1992) is programmatic. The main inspiration for this piece was the stone circle at Castlerigg. This represented a meeting place for festivals and dancing (as well as worship) and the music is a collage of dance, mysticism and combat.

An earlier work, Life Cycle (1992), was composed for dance and shares the same idea of programme, although in this case it is far more abstract, dwelling on life's journey with the fullness of life being represented by a strong minimalist section.

As well as orchestral music, Pounds has also composed a number of chamber works that include sonatas for violin and for flute, but it was not until the composition of String Quartet No.2 that the music returned to a programmatic form. This one-movement work, composed in 2003, contrasts themes of a war-like nature with those of reason and meditation.

Other pieces have been inspired by literature, such as the Shakespeare Sonnets for voice, flute and piano.

Pounds has also composed extensively for the voice. This includes a number of carols (including A Cradle Song) and an opera, Syn (2005), based on the novel by Russell Thorndike.

The Martyrdom of Latimer (2009), a tone-poem by Pounds, explores the final days of Bishop Hugh Latimer’s life and his burning at the stake for heresy. He employs modal themes and liturgical ideas combined with strong rhythmic statements. The orchestra, which is fairly large, also employs four trumpet parts. Two of the players are to be sited in the gallery. The piece was started on 23rd March and took shape very quickly, being completed on the 15th May and was the response to a commission from the Ely Sinfonia. It was first performed in Ely Cathedral.

The London Cantata, completed in 2017, returns to Pounds’ city of birth, reflecting upon the historical diversity of life in the capital, set to the words of such as Wilfred Owen, George Eliot and William Wordsworth.

In May 2021, Pounds completed his Third Symphony, which was subsequently recorded in November 2022 by the Sinfonia of London, conducted by John Wilson for Chandos Records. This work is a reflection upon the psychological effects of the lockdowns imposed during the Covid pandemic, an expression of Pounds’ varied emotional reactions to the changes wrought upon every day life.

His fourth symphony will be completed in 2023.

Orchestral

 * Symphony No.3 (2021)
 * Symphony No.2 (2019)
 * The Martyrdom of Latimer (2009)
 * Interludes from Syn (2005)
 * Flute Concertino (1999)
 * NorthernPicture (1993)
 * Life Cycle (1992)
 * Violin Concerto (1989)
 * Festival Overture (1987)
 * Symphony No.1 (1985)
 * Gaelic Triptych (1981)
 * Sinfonietta (1979)

Chamber

 * Sonata for Flute and Piano (2020)
 * Clarinet Quintet (2013)
 * Sextet (2012)
 * Time (2011)
 * A Shakespeare Sonnet (2010)
 * Blake’s Drum (2010)
 * String Quartet No.2 (2003)
 * A Prelude to Bach	(1997)
 * Sonata for Violin and Piano (1986)
 * Wind Quintet (1984)
 * String Quartet No.1 (1978)

Vocal

 * London Cantata (2016)
 * Veni, Redentor Gentium (2016)
 * Crucifixus (2014)
 * Behold the Great Creator Makes (2012)
 * Time (2011)
 * The Christ-Child (2011)
 * To an Evening Star (2009)
 * Christmas Evocation (2008)
 * A Cradle Song	(2007)

Opera

 * Syn (2005)

Discography

 * Sonata (2020)
 * Time (2018)
 * Symphony (2018)
 * London Cantata (2016)
 * Entr’acte (2013)
 * Resurrection (2011)
 * Magnificat - Christmas from Cambridge (2007)
 * The Nelson Orchestra 25th Anniversary Recording (Walton, Pounds, Vaughan Williams) (2006)
 * Shostakovich String Quartet No.3, Barber, Pounds String Quartets (2005)