Alan Hawkshaw, Channel 4 News composer, passes away

It is with great sadness that I read in the news today that the composer Alan Hawkshaw has passed away last weekend.

I first met Alan and his lovely wife Chris at a concert at the Leeds College of Music almost ten years ago. The student orchestra was playing his recently arranged overture Best Endeavours, using his well-known theme from The Channel 4 News.

Alan was keen to get the orchestral music edited into a format that could easily be played by a wide range of orchestras, including amateur groups. We worked together on this task during 2011/12 and printed sets of orchestral parts ready for playing. One of the key tasks was to make the brilliant trumpet solo part more approachable (at a lower pitch) for most players. The end result still maintained the vibrant ring of a piccolo trumpet within the context of a very playable, and catchy overture for orchestra.

The first performance of the newly transcribed work was in Todmorden Town Hall, West Yorkshire, where I had the honour of playing the solo trumpet part. It was a very special and memorable concert for all those involved. Both his wife Chris, and his brother Ray were in the audience.

Only recently (during lockdown last summer) Alan was helping a youth orchestra to play together remotely by using an online set of parts for Best Endeavours. I have just been having another look at the score today, and it has brought back some happy memories of Alan and his dedication to music-making in all forms. I hope to be able to encourage an orchestra to play it again - let me know if you are interested and I will get a set out to you.

Orchestral Score for Best Endeavours

Click on the image on the left to open the music score.