Gwyn Arch

Gwyn Arch (4 May 1931 – June 2021) was a British musical arranger, composer, and choir director. He grew up in Birmingham and then Ipswich, where he attended secondary school. After national service he studied English at Selwyn College, University of Cambridge. He played in jazz bands there and at Wadham College, Oxford, In the 1960s he arranged music for BBC Home Service radio programmes for schools, and in the 1970s, he made several appearances, as a conductor, on the BBC Television programme Seeing and Believing.

In 1969 the publishers B. Feldman asked Arch to contribute to the Pop Cantata school music genre established by its rival Novello and Co., in works such as The Daniel Jazz (by Herbert Chappell) and Jonah-man Jazz (by Michael Hurd). Setting a text by his colleague Patrick Rooke, Arch composed Creation Jazz, a lively account of how God created the world. It is a fifteen minute work of seven songs linked by recitative sections. It was broadcast by BBC Television on 1 February 1970.

He was musical director of the South Chiltern Choral Society for almost 50 years, retiring in 2014. In 1971 he established the Reading Male Voice Choir and served as the choir's musical director until 2015. He marketed many of his arrangements for male voice choirs as sheet music via his company Grove Music.

Honours Arch was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2006 Birthday Honours, for services to music in Berkshire.

The Gwyn Arch Foundation was launched in his memory on 9 April 2022 at a celebration concert featuring several of the choirs he founded. It aims "to support the development and performance of choral music by and for young people within the Thames Valley".

Personal life Arch met Jane, subsequently a head teacher, when he was at Oxford University, where he was musical director of the Experimental Theatre Club and she was in the choir. They married two years later, and moved to Sonning Common in 1964. Their elder son David Arch is a conductor, arranger and composer and the musical director on the BBC Television show Strictly Come Dancing.

Arch died on 6 June 2021.