Frederick Stocken Biography

James Frederick Stocken (born 1967) is a British classical composer, organist and musicologist.

Background

Stocken's father is British but his mother was a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany.

Stocken was a pupil at Chetham's School of Music in Manchester, and was subsequently Organ Scholar of St Catharine's College, Cambridge. Howard Ferguson and Margaret Hubicki were compositional mentors in the early years of his career. He also studied the organ with Peter Hurford. He subsequently gained a doctorate in music from the University of Manchester.

Compositions

Stocken's best-known composition is Lament for Bosnia, which was released on CD (becoming the number one best-selling classical CD in Tower Records' London store during early 1994). He conducted the work at the opening of the Permanent Holocaust Exhibition at the Imperial War Museum with the strings of the Royal Academy of Music, and also in Sarajevo with the Sarajevo Philharmonic Orchestra. As the sleeve-notes to the CD explain, the work was also dedicated to Stocken's maternal grandmother, Rosa Bechhofer, who had died in Auschwitz.

Stocken's First Symphony was commissioned by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vernon Handley in the Royal Albert Hall, London and broadcast on Classic FM (UK). His Second Symphony, 'To the Immortal Memory', was premiered in 2005 at St John's Smith Square, London, by the Young Musicians Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Blair.

Other significant commissions include a ballet - Alice - written for the State Theatre in Gieen, Germany, and a Mass - Missa Pacis - commissioned for the Brompton Oratory in London. In 2004, Top Of The Morning (for flute and piano) was published by Oxford University Press. Other Stocken compositions include a Violin Concerto, which was performed by the violinist Adam Summerhayes with the Surrey Sinfonietta in St John's Smith Square. Stocken's Bagatelle (for piano) was featured on the 2009 album Haflidi"?s Pictures (a compilation of 20th/21st century piano music).

Works by Frederick Stocken

Selected works

• Lament for Bosnia
• Violin Concerto
• Missa Pacis (Mass of Peace)
• Alice,(a ballet)
• First Symphony
• Second Symphony
• Archangels (for organ)
• Bagatelle (for piano)

Discography

as composer

• Lament for Bosnia (CD single, Chatsworth Records, 1994) - double-sided single performed by Queens Orchestra (b/w 'Adagio for Strings' by Samuel Barber)
• Haflidi"?s Pictures (CD album, Priory Records, 2009) - features 'Bagatelle (for piano)'

as performer

• Dedication in Time: Chamber Music by Margaret Hubicki (CD album, Chandos Music, 2005) - featured pianist on final track ('Goladon Suite').

Selected bibliography

• Steblin, Rita; Stocken, Frederick (2007), "Studying with Sechter: newly recovered reminiscences about Schubert by his forgotten friend, the composer Joseph Lanz" Music & letters : a quarterly publication. - Oxford Univ. Press, ISSN 0027-4224, vol. 88.2007, 2, 226-265