Havelock Nelson
Havelock Nelson (25 May 1917 – 5 August 1996) was an Irish composer and conductor.
Havelock Nelson
- Born
- 1917
- Died
- 1996
- Nationality
- Ireland
- Occupation
- composer · conductor
- Education
- Royal Irish Academy of Music
- Honours
- honorary doctorate
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Life
Life
Nelson was born in Cork and studied in Dublin with Dina Copeman and Dorothy Stokes at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, organ with George Hewson and composition with John F. Larchet. He read medical studies and music at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and followed his first degree with doctoral research in bacteriology, completed in 1941. He was co-founder, in 1939, of the Dublin Orchestral Players. In 1950 he obtained a doctorate in music from TCD. In 1947, he joined the BBC in Belfast. He conducted the BBC Northern Ireland Orchestra, also the Studio Symphony Orchestra and the Ulster Singers. On his retirement in 1977 he went to Trinidad to direct a local opera company. Nelson died in Belfast.
Music
Music
Nelson's compositions were legion and included orchestral works, a ballet, a choral suite and many partsongs, anthems and (particularly) unison songs, song cycles and other solo songs (like Dirty Work and Love is Cruel), piano pieces including the Three Irish Diversions, instrumental works like Cameos for clarinet solo, incidental music for films and radio and TV plays, and many arrangements of Irish and other folksongs. He also made several LP recordings. Among the more popular of his published miniatures are nursery rhymes in the styles of Mendelssohn and Rossini.
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Text attribution
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The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Havelock Nelson, revision 1330050678 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
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The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 04 October 2026.
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