John Caldwell - Biography#

John Caldwell read Music at Keble College, Oxford, gaining a first-class BA degree in 1960, BMus (for composition) in 1961, and DPhil (for musicological research) in 1965, by which time he was already an Assistant Lecturer at Bristol University. He returned to Oxford in 1967, and progressed through fellowships at Keble and Jesus College, and lectureship, readership and professorship at the Music Faculty until his (nominal) retirement in 2005.

Throughout his academic career he has also been a church organist in Oxford. Since the closing years of the last century he has also composed prolifically, having had no less than four operas performed publicly:

• Good Friday, produced Oxford, 1998, 1999 (recorded on GMCD7187)
  
• The Word, produced Oxford and Tewkesbury, 2001
  
• Pascha nostrum, produced Oxford and Tewkesbury, 2002
  
• The Story of Orpheus, produced Oxford, 2004

Sacred choral compositions form a majority of his works.

Apart from the article in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (see esp. Grove Music Online), an appreciation of his life and work was published by David Maw in Essays on English Music in Honour of John Caldwell, ed. David Maw and Emma Hornby (Woodbridge 2010). This Festschrift also continues a list of his publications and compositions.