Simon Holt

Simon Holt (born 21 February 1958) is a British composer.

Biography

Holt was born in Bolton and educated at Bolton School. Shortly after graduating from the Royal Northern College of Music, he became firmly established on the new music circuit with a series of commissions and fruitful collaborations with the London Sinfonietta and the Nash Ensemble. Influenced by Messiaen, Xenakis and Feldman as well as visual artists such as Goya, Alberto Giacometti and Brâncuși, his music is complex, dramatic and often enigmatic. The intricate internal structures of his works are concealed by a seemingly impulsive nature. During the 1980s he worked primarily in complex soundworlds, while since the 1990s the dense textures have often been offset by Feldmanesque moments of calm, that Holt refers to as ‘still centres’.

Career highlights

Simon Holt (commentator)

Simon Holt (born 18 April 1964) is a British horse racing commentator, who since the beginning of 2000 has been the main race commentator for Channel 4.

Commentary career

Holt became a racecourse commentator in 1988, and made his TV debut for Channel 4 on 30 September 1994 at Newmarket.

He rose through the commentating ranks quickly, and was race-calling alongside Graham Goode for the SIS feed for the Grand National in 1990. The pair went on to commentate on the race together until 1997. Holt was also racecourse commentator at Newmarket during the Guineas meeting whilst positioned out in the country, and has been grandstand commentator at Royal Ascot since the mid-1990s.

From the beginning of 1995 he was heard regularly, sometimes as a race commentator but sometimes in the now defunct job of betting and results reader. He replaced Raleigh Gilbert as Channel 4's second commentator, calling the first part of the race at tracks such as Newmarket before handing over to Goode in the grandstand. Goode at that time remained Channel 4's main race commentator, but in the late 1990s Holt covered more and more races such as the Whitbread Gold Cup and the Tingle Creek Chase at Sandown Park.