Patrick Larley was born in Frodsham, Cheshire in 1951. He studied piano
and organ whilst a chorister, and from the age of 15, gained considerable
choral conducting experience as organist and choirmaster at two parish
churches in the Cheshire area.
After studying organ and singing at the Royal Manchester College of Music
and gaining the Fellowship of the Royal College of Organists, Patrick
began a professional career centred around cathedral music; as a singer
in Wells Cathedral, Somerset, an organist at St. Asaph Cathedral in North
Wales and St. James Church in Great Grimsby, Lincolnshire, and then as
Director of Music at Ellesmere College, in Shropshire. In 1990 he relinquished
this post to concentrate on his freelance work as a composer, conductor,
harpsichordist and organist. Patrick is Music Director of Birmingham Festival Choral Society and Ludlow Choral
Society, founder and director of the professional vocal group Chudleigh's Company, and the early music group, The Gallery Players.
Patrick works from the peaceful setting of his home a converted
18th century malt house in a small farming village in North Wales, where
he lives with his wife Gill.

Patrick Larleys music has been described as listener accessable
and performer possible. With a background steeped in sacred music,
it is not surprising that a strong influence of plainchant and early polyphony
can be discerned in his choral works, together with the simpler, folk-like
idiom of the Celtic tradition inspired by his many visits to the Hebridean
island of Mull, in Scotland, overlooking Iona. In contrast there are clusters
of harmony hovering above spacious melody, a sub-concious plagiarism of
the sounds of the French monastic liturgy, firmly implanted in Patricks
soul through his love of the sacred hill-top town of Vezelay in Burgundy,
and its magnificent Basilica dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen. Patrick Larley
weaves these somewhat opposing strands of influence together, with his
firm grounding in harmony, counterpoint and form, into the most beautiful
musical structures which are, on the surface, uncomplicated, yet have
great inner depth.
|