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Sir Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss (1891-1975), English composer, conductor and administrator, was born in London on August 2, 1891, to an American father and an English mother. Before entering Cambridge University at the age of 22, he attended Bilton Grange Prep school and Rugby. After Cambridge, he later studied at the Royal College of Music under Charles Villiers Stanford.
He served throughout World War I as an infantry officer, and wrote his choral symphony, Morning Heroes, as a heartfelt tribute to those who died. He went to the US and taught there for two years, from 1923. He made a mark with works using the style of the French Les Sixs but successive orchestral works established him as Edward Elgar's successor.
Bliss conducted the first performance of Igor Stravinsky's Ragtime for 11 instruments and the first Englishman to adopt the latter's neo-classicism, but considered his best known work, A Colour Symphony, showed a change to a more conservative Romantic approach.
Notably ceremonial and arresting is his Symphony for Orator, Chorus and Orchestra, Morning Heroes, perhaps reflective of his experiences of World War I, including being wounded in 1916, gassed two years after, and the death of his brother at the Somme.
His compositions include three ballets (Checkmate, Paris; Miracle in the Gorbals, London; Adam Zero), a notable score for H.G. Wells film score Things to Come and his opera The Olympians express his feelings for high drama and atmosphere.
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