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Welcome to the Department of Music

This is one of the liveliest music departments in the country, with a busier schedule of performance activities than you will find in any other university department. The range of study, performance and composition is extremely wide, both within our taught courses and at research level.

It is with great sadness that we have learned of the death of Alan Hacker OBE on Monday April 16th 2012.   Alan was one of the great musicians of our time, a pioneer of classical and contemporary clarinet playing and an innovative conductor.  He was one of the founder members of 'The Pierrot Players' (later 'The Fires of London'), and many important works were composed for him by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and Sir Harrison Birtwistle, including Birtwistle's 'The Io Passion', which Alan premiered at Aldburgh in June 2004.  In the 1970s he was a Lecturer in Music here, and he remained living in the York area until his death.  He was a regular visitor to the department, and taught a number of our more advanced clarinettists.  He will be greatly missed, and our thoughts go out to his widow Margaret and all his family.