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The Elgar Complete Edition is published by Elgar Society Edition Ltd, a
Company limited by Guarantee (Registration Number: 04188073), a Registered Charity (No.
1086576) and a subsidiary of ElgarWorks (also a Company limited by Guarantee (Registration
Number: 06040208). The board of ESE Ltd comprises the Company's five directors and two
advisers - the General Editor and the Chief Originator:
Robert Anderson studied Classics and Egyptology at Cambridge University and
has since pursued careers as both an Egyptologist and musicologist. He has written numerous
books and articles in both roles, notably the Dent Master Musicians series biography of Elgar,
and was for eighteen years an associate editor of The Musical Times. This led to him
becoming a co-ordinating editor of the Elgar Complete Edition in the 1980s and the editor of
several volumes in the Edition. In 2006 he became Chairman of Elgar Works and in early 2007
of the Complete Edition, roles which he has since relinquished to Steven Halls following his
emigration to Egypt, although he remains a Director of both organisations. He was also a
Vice-President of the Elgar Society for many years. He has conducted extensively, notably with
the St Bartholemew's Choral Society, and continues to work as a music critic and reviewer.
Frank Beck is the Complete Edition's Sales Director and is also the
Board's North American representative, being based in New York.
Steven Halls became Chairman of the Complete Edition in November
2007 and of Elgar Works in October 2008, both in succession to Robert Anderson. In June 2008,
he was also elected Chairman of the Elgar Society. Having studied Modern Languages at Oxford
University, he subsequently gained a PhD in German and Music, an MBA, and an M.Phil in
politics. Having been professionally involved in music promotion in the North of England and
the Midlands from 1976, he has followed a career in local government from 1987, becoming
Chief Executive of Three Rivers District Council, based in Rickmansworth, Herts in 2003.
One of Steven's passions is for chamber music, both as listener and performer. From 1970
to 1979 he studied the 'cello with Pauline Dunn in Harrogate and Suzanne Ramon in Paris, and
has been directing, and performing in, chamber series in the Midlands for the last eleven
years.
John Norris, the Complete Edition's General Manager since 2003 and a
member of the Elgar Society for over twenty years, first became actively involved in the
promotion of Elgar's music in 1996 when he developed the elgar.org website. This led in 1999
to his formation and subsequent running of Elgar Enterprises, the Society's trading arm, and
Elgar Editions, its publishing imprint and recording label. He became a member of the Society s
Executive in 2000 as Commercial Development Officer, and in 2003 took early retirement from
a career as a Civil Servant to enable him to devote more time to his Elgar interests. In 2006, he
relinquished his Elgar Society responsibilities to become Chairman of Elgar Foundation
Enterprises, the trading arm of the Elgar Birthplace Museum, and also to form ElgarWorks.
John Pickard, the General Editor, is a Senior Lecturer in Music at the
University of Bristol and a composer. In the latter role, he is best known for a series of powerful
orchestral and instrumental works including four symphonies and a number of other orchestral
works of symphonic dimensions. The Flight of Icarus, a BBC commission first
performed in 1991 by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and repeated by them at the 1996
BBC Proms, has recently been released on CD by BIS records in a recording project of John's
orchestral music with the Norrk”ping Symphony Orchestra. He is also noted for his commitment
to the brass band movement, serving as Composer-in-Residence to the renowned Buy as you
View Cory Band, from 2001 until 2004 and composing the test piece for the finals of the 2005
National Brass Band Championship. John also lectures extensively, notably on Elgar's music.
Paul Adrian Rooke is the Chief Originator of the Complete Edition. He
has pursued a multi-faceted musical career since his retirement from the teaching profession in
2003. The conductor of the Hitchin Symphony Orchestra since 1985 and more recently of the
Stevenage Male Voice Choir, Paul has two symphonies and a number of other significant
compositions to his credit. In 2007, he produced performing editions of two Polonaises and three
movements for piano trio left incomplete by Elgar and published in the Appendices to Vols.37
and 38 of the Complete Edition. In 2006, with John Norris, he was instrumental in the formation
of ElgarWorks, an organisation which provides practical support to those wishing to
put on performances of Elgar's lesser-known works, primarily through the provision of orchestral
scores and instrumental parts derived from full scores published in the Complete Edition.
Ann Vernau has been a member of the Elgar Society for over twenty years and
edited the Society's News from 2002 until 2007, when she became the Company
Secretary of both the Elgar Society Edition and Elgar Works. Away from the world of
Elgar, she is a magistrate, the company secretary of the Three Rivers Museum of Local History,
the secretary of the Rickmansworth Historical Society and a committee member of the Three
Rivers Music Society.
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