Christopher Ball

Christopher Ball (7 July 1936 – 7 April 2022) was a British composer, arranger, conductor, clarinetist and recorder player.

Early life and education Ball was born in Leeds in 1936.

In 1971 Ball founded the Praetorius Consort, an early music ensemble, which he directed. The consort performed at the Wigmore Hall and elsewhere in London as well as at festivals in Europe during the 1970s. It made recordings for EMI, BBC Records and Decca, including Medieval Paris: Music of the City. In 1973 he founded the London Baroque Trio, performing on recorder with Mary Verney (harpsichord) and Peter Vel (bass viol). They made their Wigmore Hall debut in 1974; Joan Chissell, in a review for The Times, praised Ball's playing for its "cooing tone and agility", writing that he "almost transcended the treble recorder's limitations". He played a Bressan treble recorder dated around 1710.

Composer In 1981 Ball began a ten-year association with the BBC Midland Radio Orchestra, during which the BBC commissioned many light orchestral compositions and arrangements from him.

From the mid-1990s Ball concentrated on composing. Starting with a recorder concerto entitled The Piper of Dreams (1995), French horn, and two for cello (dedicated to the Croatian cellist Stjepan Hauser of 2Cellos; the first dated 2010). His other recorded works include a Clarinet Quintet, Caprice on a Baroque Theme, the wind quintet Scenes From A Comedy, and Invocations of Pan. He also wrote multiple works for solo recorder and various recorder ensembles.

Stephen H. Smith, in a recent book on 20th-century English composers, describes Ball's work as in the "tonal, easy-listening tradition". Alan Titchmarsh describes Ball as an "accomplished contemporary composer" and praises his arrangement, The Lark in the Clear Air. Jack Sullivan, in a review for American Record Guide, describes Ball's concertos for wind instruments as "unremittingly pleasant", describing them as avoiding all dissonance and characterised by a "benevolent eclecticism that gives an amiable nod to the least forced moments in 20th Century music".

Ball died on 7 April 2022 at Denville Hall.