Norman Hallam (composer)
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Norman Hallam (9 October 1945 – April 2025) was an English clarinetist and the composer of the Dance Suite for wind quintet.[1]
Born in Coventry, Hallam began playing the clarinet from the age of 11,[2] studying with Michael Saxton, then principal clarinet with the BBC Midland Orchestra. He continued his studies at the Birmingham School of Music with Saxton and composition with Allan Hawthorne-Baker (1909-1977). He attended the Royal Academy of Music in London from 1964 until 1968. After two years as a freelancer he joined the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in 1970 as 2nd Clarinet under Kevin Banks,[3] staying there until 1999 when he retired for health reasons. Hallam was also a member of the Canzona Wind Quintet from the mid-1970s until the mid-1980s.[4]
His best known composition is the Dance Suite (1980) for wind ensemble (flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon), which was written for Canzona.[5] It has four movements: Waltz, Bossa Nova, Quickstep and Charleston.[6] Other pieces include a Fantasy for four horns and a Fantasy for unaccompanied clarinet (1992), which has been performed by Michael Whight.[7] His jazz-influenced Clarinet Concerto, premiered in October 1998, was composed for Kevin Banks, who performed it twice (at Cheltenham and Poole). Banks has described the difficulties of the piece as "fiendish".[8]
Hallam contracted polio in 1949 at the age of four, and used a wheelchair all his life.[4][2] He had a daughter and son from his first marriage. He married his second wife Sally (a viola player) in the early-1980s, and they had a son and daughter.[9]
