Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo: Cantata (text by Michael Flanders) for mixed chorus with piano, double bass and percussion Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo (1970) is a children's cantata composed in a popular style for unison or two-part voices and piano, with optional bass and drums. The libretto by Michael Flanders is an adaptation of the Biblical tale of Noah found in Genesis chapters 6–9. It is one of a series of " pop cantatas" commissioned for school use by Novello, including The Daniel Jazz (1963) by Herbert Chappell, Jonah-Man Jazz (1966) by Michael Hurd and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat by Andrew Lloyd Webber (1968). Goldenes Verdienstzeichen 1995., in Handbuch der Stadt Wien 1995/96., p. II/226. Retrieved 16 February 2022. Gentleman's Island (libretto by Gordon Snell) in English or German for tenor, baritone and chamber orchestra

The commitment and enthusiasm of the children was memorable, as was the sight of their parents in the audience”Born in Vienna, Joseph was the son of Béla Horovitz, a publisher and co-founder of Phaidon Press, and his wife, Lotte (nee Beller). He had two younger sisters: Elly, later Miller, became an art publisher, and Hannah a concert promoter. Escaping from the city just days after the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938, Joseph and one of his sisters travelled unaccompanied to Antwerp, where the family were reunited, reaching London soon afterwards. They spent the war years in Bath and Oxford. Wright, David C. H. (2019). The Royal College of Music and Its Contexts: An Artistic and Social History. Cambridge University Press. p.348. ISBN 9781107163386. Gordon Jacob was an RCM student (studying composition with Stanford, Howells and Vaughan Williams) who returned to teach ... and 1959–66); his students included Ruth Gipps, Imogen Holst, Alan Ridout, Philip Cannon and Joseph Horovitz. I’m a secular person but of a generation that learned bible stories at school. The magic and richness of these stories has stayed with me as mythology, not theology. I was pleased to find old Noah step into my poem. I see him as played by John Houston. Many animal qualities in the poem are invented, but some are adapted from old bestiaries and a scurry around world mythologies. I am indebted to poet Alyson Hallett for information about the hyena. This year we reprised the wonderful cantata Captain Noah and his Floating Zoo, which we performed alongside a number of songs of the sea.

After completing his schooling at The City of Oxford High School Horovitz studied music and modern languages at New College, Oxford, where his teachers included R. O. Morris, Percy Scholes, Bernard Rose and Egon Wellesz. [5] He later attended the Royal College of Music in London, studying composition with Gordon Jacob. [6] Horovitz then undertook a year of further study with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. His musical career began in 1950, when he became music director at the Bristol Old Vic. He was subsequently active as a conductor of ballet and opera, and toured Europe and the United States. His more serious religious vocal works included the psalm setting Sing unto the Lord a New Song (1971), which was the first work commissioned from a Jewish composer for the choir of St Paul's Cathedral. The oratorio Samson for voices and brass band followed in 1977, a commission from the National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain.Miller, Dr Malcolm. 'From Noah to Ninotchka via Samson and psalms', in Jewish Renaissance, July 2006, p 31 Young Joseph was showing promise as pianist when the family fled Austria in 1938 after the country was annexed by the Nazis. Memories of their departure remained vivid. “It’s indelible,” he said more than half a century later. “You cannot have the experience of being ejected from your home without remaining intensely uneasy.”

He is survived by his wife, Anna (nee Landau), whom he married in 1956, and their two daughters, Isabel and Sally, six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

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He began to achieve critical acclaim in the 1950s for two comic operas, The Dumb Wife, with a libretto by Peter Shaffer after Rabelais, and Gentleman’s Island, and for a series of ballets (he wrote 16 in all) beginning with Les Femmes d’Alger (1952) and continuing with Alice in Wonderland (1953) and Concerto for Dancers (1958). The former were performed by the Intimate Opera Company, for which he acted as a pianist-composer. In 1961 he was appointed professor of composition at the Royal College of Music, becoming a fellow in 1981 and continuing to teach there until shortly before his death. Horovitz married Anna Landau in 1956, shortly after coaching at the bi-centenary celebration for Mozart and Glyndeborne. They honeymooned in Majorca, staying in Paguera and visiting Valldemossa. He later used these two names for two clarinet pieces, based on Spanish folk-tunes he had heard there. He was Professor of Composition at the Royal College of Music from 1961, and a Council Member of the Composers' Guild of Great Britain from 1970. [7] Between 1969 and 1996 he belonged to the board of the Performing Rights Society. This article is about the British composer and conductor. For the American cultural historian, see Joseph Horowitz.

Choir and children together sang What shall we do with the drunken sailor? and Somewhere over the Rainbow, and The Bach Choir sang a special arrangement of the Skye Boat Song, commissioned from John Tavener. Snowman, Daniel. "The Hitler Emigrés". www.penguin.co.uk. Archived from the original on 22 February 2020 . Retrieved 23 February 2020. The last of his five string quartets, dating from 1969, one of his finest works, uses gritty dissonance seemingly to recall the harsh experiences of his earlier life, with anguish forcefully invoked by insistent repetitions of Viennese waltz motifs. The disquiet alternates with wistful passages, however, and the quartet achieves a peaceful resolution on to a final consonance.Horovitz's story begins with his escape from the Nazis as they entered Vienna in 1938, to then include giving wartime musical appreciation lectures to the forces, being awarded two Ivor Novello awards for later compositions, and working with such comic legends as Gerard Hoffnung and Michael Flanders.