Jonathan Lloyd (30 September 1948 – 31 July 2025) was a British composer.
Life and career Lloyd's early teachers included Emile Spira. He continued his studies at the Royal College of Music where he was a recipient of the Mendelssohn Scholarship. His orchestral work Cantique, which he wrote whilst at the RCM, was featured in the 30-year retrospective of the Society for the Promotion of New Music (SPNM) in 1973. He continued to study composition with John Lambert and Edwin Roxburgh as well as Henri Pousseur in Durham. In 1973, Lloyd attended the Tanglewood Music Center in the US, where he studied with György Ligeti and where he won the Koussevitsky Prize for his work Scattered Ruins. In 1978-1979, he was composer-in-residence at the Dartington College of Arts in its theatre department.
Lloyd began to achieve wider recognition with his 1981 work Toward the Whitening Dawn, which he composed in memory of John Lennon. He composed works on commission from such ensembles as the London Sinfonietta, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. In addition to works for the concert hall, Lloyd composed a new score to accompany the silent version of Alfred Hitchcock's 1929 film Blackmail.In 1986 he collaborated with the music critic Michael White on a large-scale community opera, The Adjudicator, for the village of Blewbury, Oxon.
Lloyd died on 31 July 2025 at the age of 76.
Selected compositions
Chamber ensembles
Airs and Graces Almeida Dances Ballad for the Evening of a Man Ben's Boogie Brass Quintet Dancing in the Ruins Don't mention the War The Five Senses 'Go Blow Your Own' 'He will make it' 'It's All Sauce to Me' John's Journal Like Fallen Angels The Mill of Memories The New Ear Oboe Sonata One Step More Restless Night The Shorelines of Certainty Songs from the Other Shore ("It's All Sauce to Me"; "The Mill of Memories"; "Like Fallen Angels"; "The Shorelines of Certainty") String Quintet No. 1 String Quintet No. 2 Then There (guitar duo version) There and Then Three Dances Time Between Trains True Refuge Waiting for Gozo Wind Quintet 'Won't It Ever Be Morning'
Orchestral and concertante works
blessed days of blue (for flute and orchestra) Cantique Fantasy (for violin and orchestra) Feuding Fiddles Keir's Kick new balls old racket Rhapsody (for cello and orchestra) Symphony No. 1 (1980) British Music Collection Symphony No. 2 (1983-4) Boosey & Hawkes Symphony No. 3 (1987) British Music Collection Symphony No. 4 (1988) Symphony No. 5 (1989) Boosey & Hawkes There (for guitar and orchestra) Tolerance British Music Collection Viola Concerto Violin Concerto Wa Wa Mozart (for piano and orchestra)
Choral and vocal works
And Beyond Everything Returns If I Could Turn You On Marching to a Different Song Mass Missa Brevis 'People your Dreams' Revelation Three Songs Toward the Whitening Dawn
Music theatre works Musices Genus Scattered Ruins The Adjudicator
References
External links Boosey & Hawkes webpage on Lloyd Royal Philharmonic Society, RPS Elgar Bursary recipients webpage on Lloyd Colin Anderson, 'BBC Symphony Orchestra/Andrew Davis – Jonathan Lloyd's old racket & Tippett 4 – Stephen Hough plays Brahms'. Classical Source website.