Malcolm Arnold Festival Northampton streams concerts online

A day of online concerts at a festival dedicated to Oscar-winning composer Malcolm Arnold continues his legacy of “accessibility,” the organizer said.

Arnold, died in 2006 at the age of 84won an Oscar for his score for The Bridge on the River Kwai, a 1957 film about British prisoners of war captured by the Japanese.

The festival named after him in his home town of Northampton has been held for 19 years.

Organizer and Arnold biographer Paul Hill said his music is “so accessible” to the public that online concerts are being held in real time. broadcast free on Sunday.

Arnold wrote more than 100 film soundtracks, as well as nine symphonies, several concertos and other compositions, and conducted the Deep Purple concert album Concerto for Group and Orchestra.

He was born and lived most of his life in Northampton before moving to Norfolk and dying in the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital.

On October 19, the annual festival featured concerts and events around Northampton.

The online day includes free concerts of chamber, solo and orchestral music, as well as talks, lectures and interviews.

Mr. Hill said the composer “wanted (his music) to be accessible.”

“Communication was important to him, he wanted to communicate with people, so he wrote melodies,” he said.

He said that in the 1940s and 1950s, Arnold’s music was not always well received by critics, but “people liked it and he stuck with it.”

Asked how Arnold would have felt about the festival, Mr Hill said: “In his best days he was a wonderful person and got on so well with people that I think he would have enjoyed it.”