Michael Blake Watkins

Michael Blake Watkins was born in 1948. He studies under the guidance of Elisabeth Lutyens and Richard Rodney Bennett, and has also made a special study of guitar and lute with Michael Jessett. Several of his works have been heard in London, and on the radio. They have made an impact unusual for a young composer. His ‘Double Concerto’ won the 1975 Menuhin Prize for Composition; he was chosen to write a piece for the City Music Trust in 1976; and his solo violin piece was selected as the test piece in the 1976 Carl Flesch Competition. He won the 1978 Guinness Prize for which he wrote a piece for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. In both 1978 and 1979 he was awarded Arts Council bursaries. In 1981 he became the first Fellow in Television Composition, sponsored jointly by the Greater London Arts Association and London Weekend Television.