A prolific composer of light classical music, Bryan Kelly has been writing in many different genres since the 1940s. This Heritage release features some of the music Kelly has composed for orchestral forces, recorded this year with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia to celebrate his 80th year. The music is very accessible and Kelly is well-known to Classic FM audiences. His 'Epitaph for Peace', featured here, will be pre-released as a digital EP to coincide with Remembrance Day commemorations for which it is written. The two Christmas suites – 'A Christmas Celebration' and 'Nativity Scenes' – are guaranteed Classic FM and BBC Radio 3 airplay during the festive season.

Bryan Kelly was born in Oxford in 1934. At the age of nine he became a chorister at Worcester College and later went to the Royal College of Music where he studied with Norman Greenwood (piano), and composition with Herbert Howells, Gordon Jacob and with Nadia Boulanger in Paris.

He began his career writing incidental music for plays. In 1957 he was appointed to a theory post at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music, but after a few years, moved to a similar one at the RCM, where he stayed for twenty years. In 1980 he was invited to Egypt, to be an accompanist at the Cairo Conservatoire, later working at the Opera House and the American University. He later taught in Rome but after ten years, another change was needed, so he moved to a water-mill in the Dordogne area of France, eventually returning to England in 2004.