English composer Robert Saxton (b1953).
After early advice and encouragement from Benjamin Britten, Robert Saxton took private composition lessons with Elisabeth Lutyens. He went on to study with Robin Holloway at Cambridge University, with Robert Sherlaw Johnson as a post-graduate at Oxford University, and later with Berio. His music is intellectual and complex, texturally intricate, yet earthy and immediate. It draws on many influences including the English visionary tradition and his own Jewish heritage. Saxton is also a distinguished teacher; he has been Head of Composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Royal Academy of Music. Now professor of composition at Oxford.