Mike Watts was born in 1937 and at the age of nine started piano lessons at Denstone Prep School in Staffordshire. He played standing up in every free moment, disturbing users of the adjacent library and culminating at age 12 in Chopin´s Military Polonaise. He tended to lead the school choir for church services, and was excited by the sound of the organ from then on. A Music Exhibitioner at Denstone College under the tutelage of Lionel Lethbridge, he began organ lessons at 13, once again leading the choir trebles and already playing for simple church services within a year. Composition started at 14, Mike’s first vocal and instrumental works being played at school concerts at age 16. He participated in Messiah, the St. Matthew Passion, and numerous 20th-century works like the Stanford and Vaughan Williams services and Walton’s Te Deum. His father´s failing health obliged Mike to abandon his plans to gain an ARCO and take up a scholarship to Manchester University, and he left Denstone aged, proceeding to Articles in accountancy. He practised the latter for some 40 years, building up a substantial family business. Meanwhile Mike was given his first organist’s post at 17 and was quickly promoted to Canford Cliffs Parish Church where he built up a choir of some 16 to 20 voices. At 24 marriage took him to one of Southampton’s largest churches, with the opportunity of a three-manual organ and a choir of some 30 voices (including youngsters trained from 8 to 14), catering for three services on Sundays as well as countless weddings. These mainly featured anthems and services from the 18th to 20th centuries. Studies with Michael Peterson (St Peters, Bournemouth) and then Dr Cecil Williams led to a performance diploma at the Trinity College, London (LTCL). Mike also undertook the Representative position for the Royal School of Church Music. A particular choral interest was the settings of Stanford and Howells, and his solo repertoire ran from Bach, John Stanley, Handel, Stanford, Rheinberger (the sonatas) and Karg-Elert, to Flor Peeters. Yet after some ten years business interests became more demanding, and Mike sidestepped into a role as a locum organist and choir director for the Hampshire area. Composition always remained a constant golden thread, to the point, around the Millennium, that Mike, now resident in Mallorca, could leave business behind him and devote all his energies to the creation of new work. He now writes for many combinations of solo voice, choir, piano, organ, and orchestra, his catalogue running to some 160 works, the latest being Seascape for three soloists, double choir, organ and orchestra, a tribute to those lost in the Zeebrugge Disaster of 1987; settings of the Evening Canticles; a Tryptich of Carols; and an opera on a Lorca play. Currently on the drawing board is a modern cantata based upon two texts from Exodus and on words of the Mallorcan mystic Ramon Llull. Creative work is in full flow.
Works
AVAILABLE AS PRINTED EDITIONS OR PDF DOWNLOADS
Choral
The Burning Babe (Southwell) SATB and organ
Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis SATB/SATB and organ
"O most merciful! O most bountiful!" (Heber): an anthem for Holy CommunionSATB and organ
Songs and duets
A Quartet of Songs (Paul Archer) two high voices and piano
Gypsy Girl (Paul Archer) high voice and piano
Piano duet
Fiesta (Suite in four movements) 1. Spring Morning – 2. Bull Run – 3. Dusk – 4. Fires i Festes
AVAILABLE AS FACSIMILES OF THE COMPOSER'S MANUSCRIPT:
