Wood, Thomas

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Wood, Thomas

Wood, Thomas, English composer and author; b. Chorley, Lancashire, Nov. 28,1892; d. Bures, Essex, Nov. 19,1950. He was educated at Exeter Coll., Oxford, then studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Stanford (composition) and Herbert Fryer (piano); subsequently, Wood took his D.Mus. at the Univ. of Oxford (1920). He was music director at Tonbridge School (1920-24), and then lecturer and precentor at Exeter Coll. (1924-28). His extensive travels took him to the Far East and the Arctic; his familiarity with the sea was reflected in many of his compositions for Chorus and Orch., such as 40 Singing Seamen (1925), Master Mariners (1927), and Merchantmen (1934), and in A Seaman’sOverture for Orch. (1927). He ed. vol. II of the Oxford Song Book (1928; 3rd ed., 1937). His books include Music and Boyhood (1925) and the autobiographical True Thomas (1936); he also publ. Cobbers (on his Australian tour of 1930-32), which became highly popular in England, and a sequel to it, Cobbers Campaigning (1940).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire

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