Norman Hallam (composer)

For the footballer, see Norman Hallam.

Norman Hallam (born 9 October 1945) is an English clarinetist and the composer of the Dance Suite for wind quintet.

Born in Coventry, Hallam studied the clarinet from the age of 11,^[1] studying with Michael Saxton, then principal clarinet with the BBC Midland Orchestra. He continued his studies at the Birmingham School of Music with Saxton and composition with Allan Hawthorne-Baker (1909-1977). He attended the Royal Academy of Music in London from 1964 until 1968. After two years as a freelancer he joined the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in 1970 as 2nd Clarinet under Kevin Banks,^[2] staying there until 1999 when he retired for health reasons. Hallam was also a member of the Canzona Wind Quintet from the mid-1970s until the mid-1980s.^[3]

His best known composition is the Dance Suite (1980) for wind ensemble (flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon), which was written for Canzona.^[4] It has four movements: Waltz, Bossa Nova, Quickstep and Charleston.^[5] Other pieces include a Fantasy for four horns and a Fantasy for unaccompanied clarinet (1992), which has been performed by Michael Whight.^[6] His jazz-influenced Clarinet Concerto, premiered in October 1998, was composed for Kevin Banks, who performed it twice (at Cheltenham and Poole). Banks has described the difficulties of the piece as "fiendish".^[7]

Hallam contacted polio in 1949 at the age of four, and has used a wheelchair all his life.^[3][1] He married his second wife Sally (a viola player) in the early-1980s, and they have a son and daughter.^[8]