Mátyás Seiber

Mátyás György Seiber (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈmaːcaːʃ ˈɟørɟ ˈʃɛjbɛr]; 4 May 1905 – 24 September 1960) was a Hungarian-born composer who lived and worked in the United Kingdom from 1935 onward.

Career

Seiber was born in Budapest, and studied there with Zoltán Kodály, with whom he toured Hungary collecting folk songs. In 1928 he became director of the jazz department at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, which offered the first academic jazz courses anywhere. After they were closed by the Nazis in 1933, Seiber left Germany and settled in London. He became a British subject in 1935. From 1942, he was on the staff of Morley College in London, where he became a respected teacher of composition. Several of his students went on to become eminent musicians themselves, including Peter Racine Fricker, Don Banks, Anthony Milner, Hugh Wood, Malcolm Lipkin, John Exton, Wally Stott (who later became Angela Morley) and Barry Gray.

He was killed in a car accident in Kruger National Park, while on a lecture tour of South Africa.