Northampton’s Malcolm Arnold Festival streams concerts online

A day of online concerts as part of a festival honoring Oscar-winning composer Malcolm Arnold continues his legacy of being “accessible”, an organizer said.

arnold, who died in 2006 at the age of 84won an Academy Award for his score to the 1957 film Bridge over the River Kwai, about British prisoners of war captured by the Japanese.

The festival named after him in his hometown of Northampton is now in its 19th year in a row.

Arnold’s organizer and biographer Paul Hill said his music was “so accessible” to the public and online concerts live aired for free on Sundays.

Arnold has written more than 100 film scores, as well as nine symphonies, several concertos and other compositions, and conducted the live album Deep Purple Concerto for Group and Orchestra.

He was born and lived most of his life in Northampton and later moved to Norfolk and died at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital.

Concerts and events took place on October 19 as part of the annual festival in Northampton.

The online day includes free concerts of chamber, solo and orchestral music, as well as performances, lectures and interviews.

Mr Hill said the composer “wanted (his music) to be accessible”.

“Communication was important to him, he wanted to communicate with people, so he wrote melodies,” he said.

He said that in the 1940s and 1950s, Arnold’s music was not always well received by critics, but “people liked it and he stayed with it”.

Asked what Arnold would have said about the festival, Mr Hill said: “He was a great man in his best days and he got on so well with people, I think he’s going to enjoy it.”