Biography
Brian Easdale (10 August 1909 – 30 October 1995) was a British composer of operatic, orchestral, choral and film music. Born in Manchester, he was educated at Westminster Abbey Choir School and the Royal College of Music, where he studied composition with Armstrong Gibbs and orchestration with Gordon Jacob.
Easdale began scoring documentary films in the late 1930s and continued during wartime service with the Royal Artillery. His major film work was for the team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. He composed the scores for Black Narcissus (1947), The Red Shoes (1948), The Small Back Room (1949), The Battle of the River Plate (1956) and Peeping Tom (1960). He was the first British composer to win an Academy Award for Best Original Music Score, for The Red Shoes.
