Ancel Newton

Ancel Newton graduated from Trinity College of Music, London, in the mid 1950's, studying composition under Douglas Mews, and after graduation, with Lennox Berkeley. Some of the compositions recorded here, in 2013 with Simon Lepper and Bradley Travis, were originally written at Trinity, but were later lost in a house fire. A change in direction after university lead to a rural life in Derbyshire, focused on forestry and conservation, planting rare and unusual trees in a traditional English wood, and, helping to establish the British Butterfly Conservation Society in the 1970's. A few years ago on re-reading some of the First World War poets he was compelled to return to composition, re-writing the lost compositions from memory, and writing some new, resulting in this collection of songs, entitled "Doomed Youth".

He currently lives in Devon and is composing new work.