Mercurial Dances

Martin Ellerby studied composition with Joseph Horowitz and W.S.Lloyd Webber at the Royal College of Music during which time he was awarded the Arts Council of Great Britain Dio Fund Award for Young Composers. An Allcard Award from the Worshipful Company of Musicians enabled further studies with Wilfred Josephs shortly after which he won the Middlesex Polytechnic prize for a work for youth orchestras which was subsequently performed at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

He was composer in association to City of Sheffield schools between 1981 and 1982 and was awarded the George Butterworth Memorial Fund for his Requiem in 1985. The Norman Sykes Memorial Fund enabled a concert of five chamber works in the Purcell room, London South Bank, in 1986.

In 1988 he joined the professional staff at the London College of Music, being made Head of Composition in 1994 soon after the college's move to Thames Valley University.

In 1994/95 he was Composer in Residence to the Brass Band Berher Oberland in Switzerland and an award from the Arts Council of England enabled the Watford Youth Brass Band of Great Britain to appoint him Composer-in-Residence in 1995/96.