David Urquhart-Jones

Welcome to My Load.CD Site

I have just begun to publish information about my work. I shall set about this task by a brief survey of my career as a musician.


David Urquhart-Jones is widely experienced as a pianist, orchestral player, conductor and teacher. His work as a performer has occurred almost entirely in the classical field but he is also a talented jazz pianist.

Now, as a full-time composer, his work reflects familiarity with both classical and jazz-related styles. Engagement, as a conductor, with amateur community choral and orchestral groups have brought a keen awareness some lack of connection between the classical music industry, the music education enterprise and what is actually going on in the musical life of the community. The result, he believes, has been a tragic ignorance of 20th century master works and a refusal, by many music educators, to incorporate jazz-related styles, with their requirements for improvisation, in the curricula of young musicians.

Inspired by, among others, Bach, Mozart, Stravinsky, Milhaud, Matyas Seiber, Don Banks and Claude Bolling, Urquhart-Jones set about writing music that combined jazz and ‘classical’ styles. In these pieces ‘improvisational’ episodes are precisely scored but chord symbols are given which present an option for the real thing. Many of the ensemble pieces in this genre were written for colleagues; professional classical performers with a desire to play jazz. An example of the latter is Three and Easy for flute, piano and acoustic or electric bass Many, mainly pieces for the piano, are written for young musicians.

In a more serious vein Urquhart-Jones has written music which, for want of a better term, might be described as ‘straight’. Among these are works for piano, small ensemble and full orchestra. Most recently completed works in this category include Three Pieces for flute and piano.

Karen Lonsdale, Gordon Yemm and Dean Watkins are among respected musicians who have performed my pieces. My piano books have been enthusiastically endorsed by the many teachers who use them.

Academic and practical preparations for a career in music were accomplished in London and at the University of Michigan. In 1977, Urquhart-Jones was admitted to the American National Music Honors Society in “recognition of superior musicianship and scholarship.”