Kenneth Harding (composer)
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Kenneth Harding (10 March 1903 – September 1992) was a violist in the BBC Symphony Orchestra for thirty-five years and a British composer, composing primarily for viola.
Kenneth Harding | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 10, 1903 Abertillery, Monmouthshire, Wales |
| Died | September 1992 (aged 88–89) |
Amos ‘Kenneth’ Harding was born in Abertillery, Monmouthshire, Wales in 1903.
His early musical studies were with his father Amos Harding, who was a music teacher, choirmaster, pianist and organist. He started playing the violin at the age of six, and by the age of thirteen Harding was a professional violin player, playing in the cinema orchestra.[1]
He joined the O’Mara Opera Company in 1917 and the Bath Municipal Orchestra in 1919.[2]
He briefly studied with Dr. Norman Sprankling before entering the University College of Wales in Aberystwyth in 1920, to study composition with Sir Walford Davies, one-time Master of the King's Music. Harding, having initially studied the violin, took up the viola when Raymond Jeremy, the violist in the University of Wales String Quartet, left to study at London's Royal Academy of Music.[3]
In 1925 Harding was appointed as a violin and viola teacher at the university and conducted the junior orchestra.[4] He moved to Cardiff in 1927 and joined the Cardiff Station Orchestra. In 1928 he took up the principal viola position in the new National Orchestra of Wales. In 1930 he moved to London to take up the principal viola position in the newly formed BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Adrian Boult. He played with the BBCSO from 1930 until 1965.[5]
On the advice of his doctor, Harding ceased playing the viola in 1988 but continued to compose until his death in September 1992.
