Alan Bullard’s music is widely performed in Great Britain and many other countries, broadcast on television and radio, and appears on a number of CDs. The variety of commissions that he has undertaken - including music for a number of professional soloists and ensembles, many amateur choral societies and children’s choirs, a semi-professional chamber orchestra, wind band and recorder festivals, a professional chamber choir, a festival for massed school choirs and instrumentalists, the anniversary celebrations of a church and a school, music for examination syllabuses and educational albums, and for a television programme about the Suffolk landscape - are some indication of the wide appeal of the music of this versatile composer to many different types of musicians and audiences.
Alan Bullard was born in London in 1947 and studied with Herbert Howells at the RCM and Arnold Whittall at Nottingham University. For over 30 years he has lived in or near Colchester, Essex and for many years he was Head of Composition at Colchester Institute. He is now working as a full-time composer and he is also an examiner for the Associated Board. In 2008 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Essex, and in 2010 two of his publications, Joining the Dots (ABRSM) and The Oxford Book of Flexible Carols received awards from the Music Industries Association.
As a composer he is prolific and wide-ranging, having written in most genres for both amateurs and professionals.
Instrumental commissions range from the virtuosic A minor deconstruction for violin, clarinet and piano (Coll’Arte Trio, Birmingham 1998), Winter Variations for cello and piano (Jamie Walton and Daniel Grimwood, Tunbridge Wells 1998), Aztec Genesis for large symphony orchestra (Colchester Institute Symphony Orchestra, conductor Christopher Phelps, 2001), and String Quartet no. 2(Quince Quartet, Essex University, 2006) to pieces for young musicians such as Zoological Band (Berkshire Young Musicians Trust, 1999), Sounds through the day for recorders and percussion (Colchester Youth Arts Partnership, 2001), Harwich Hornpipe for symphony orchestra (Essex Youth Orchestra, 2004) Concerto for Recorder and Strings (written for John Turner, 2008), Journey through Time (Bloomsbury Woodwind Ensemble, 2010), North Sea Sketches (for the Society of Recorder Players Annual Convention, 2010), London Landscapes (London Youth Wind Band, 2015) and a number of collections of pieces for beginners and intermediate players published by Oxford University Press, Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, Chester Music, Peacock Press, and Spartan Press.