Music for a Festival

*Five Pieces for Descant* with the option of playing the 2nd and 4th pieces on the Tenor.

1. Preamble
2. Idyll
3. Bagatelle
4. Song Without Words
5. Calypso

Ball was born in Leeds in 1936. He studied clarinet as well as piano at the Royal Manchester college of Music. Ball began his career freelancing as an orchestral clarinetist in the Halle Orchestra.  In 1964 he became an apprentice conductor of the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra (now the BBC Philharmonic and then assistant conductor of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. He was one of several conductors of the Royal Ballet, Covent Garden (1968–70).

In 1971 Ball founded the Praetorius Consort, an early music ensemble, which he directed. Joan Chissell, in a review for The Times, praised Ball's playing for its "cooing tone and agility", writing that he "almost transcended the treble recorder's limitations".

_Score 19 pp. Part 6 pp._