Paul Spicer is a former composition pupil of Herbert Howells and has devoted a great deal of time and energy to researching and performing Howells’s music. This has resulted in many published articles, a BBC Composer of the Week series on Radio 3, editing works for publication, writing liner notes for CDs and introductory prefaces for orchestral and choral scores recently published by Novello. In addition he has written a highly acclaimed biography of Howells which was published by Seren Books in 1998 and which went into its second edition exactly a year later.

Paul Spicer gave the Howells centenary lecture at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester in 1992 and has given many illustrated lectures and masterclasses in succeeding years. With the Finzi Singers he has recorded much of Howells’s rarer choral repertoire – much of it for the first time.

He has recently been asked to write a book on Howells’s music by Seren Books to complement the life story which has been such a success.

Commissioned by Seren Books of Bridgend, Wales for their Borderlines series featuring composers, writers poets and artists who lived on the borders of England and Wales.

First published in 1998.
Second edition 1999.
Series Editor: John Powell Ward
ISBN 1-85411-233-3

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