Susan Bradshaw was a British pianist, teacher and writer. She was mainly associated with contemporary music, and especially with the work of Pierre Boulez

Pierre Boulez

Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...

, several of whose writings she translated. As a critic and musicologist she contributed to a number of magazines and journals over several decades; the titles included Contact, Music & Musicians, Tempo

Tempo (journal)

Tempo is a quarterly music journal published in the UK and specialising in music of the 20th century and contemporary music. Originally founded in 1939 as the 'house magazine' of the music publisher Boosey & Hawkes, Tempo was the brain-child of Schoenberg's pupil Erwin Stein, who worked for Boosey...

and The Musical Times

The Musical Times

The Musical Times is an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom. It is currently the oldest such journal that is still publishing in the UK, having been published continuously since 1844. It was published as The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular until...

.

Bradshaw studied at the Royal Academy of Music

Royal Academy of Music

The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...

, and then with Boulez in Paris.

Susan Bradshaw was one of the two musicians (the other being Hans Keller

Hans Keller

Hans Keller was an influential Austrian-born British musician and writer who made significant contributions to musicology and music criticism, as well as being an insightful commentator on such disparate fields as psychoanalysis and football...

) involved in the famous 'Piotr Zak

Piotr Zak

Piotr Zak is the name of a fictional Polish composer whose alleged composition Mobile for Tape and Percussion was broadcast twice on the BBC Third Programme on June 5, 1961 in a performance supposedly played by 'Claude Tessier' and 'Anton Schmidt'....

' hoax in 1961.

After her death, The Susan Bradshaw Composers' Fund was established by the Royal Philharmonic Society with donations from friends and family, led by composer Brian Elias. The purpose of the fund is to support composers (of any age) and young musicians wishing to perform works by living composers. At present the fund is used to support a commission for one of the winners of the RPS Composition Prize.

Translations

Boulez, Pierre. 1971. Boulez on Music Today, translated by Susan Bradshaw and Richard Rodney Bennett. London: Faber. ISBN 0571094201. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674080068.

Jameux, Dominique. 1991. Pierre Boulez, translated by Susan Bradshaw. London: Faber. ISBN 057113744X. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674667409.

External links

• Obituary of Edison Denisov written by Susan Bradshaw
• Susan Bradshaw's obituary in The Guardian
• Susan Bradshaw's obituary in The Independent
• Susan Bradshaw's obituary in The Times
• http://www.royalphilharmonicsociety.org.uk/?page=composers/bradshaw/about.htmlGerard McBurney
  Gerard McBurney
  Gerard McBurney — British composer, arranger, broadcaster, teacher and writer.Born 20 June 1954, in Cambridge, England. He is the son of Charles McBurney, an American archaeologist, and Anne Francis Edmondstone , who was a British secretary of English, Scots, and Irish ancestry...
  
  : 'About Susan Bradshaw' (Royal Philharmonic Society website)]
• The Susan Bradshaw Composers' Fund