Derek Healey


Derek Edward Healey is an English composer, organist, and music educator whose more than 50 published works include orchestral and chamber pieces, an opera, and several organ and choral works.

Life and career

Healey was born in Wargrave, England and studied composition under Herbert Howells and organ under Harold Darke at the Royal College of Music, London from 1952 to 1956. He received his Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Durham in 1961, followed by four years of further study at the graduate summer school of the Accademia Musicale Chigiana, Siena with Vito Frazzi, Francesco Lavagnino, and Goffredo Petrassi; and in 1952-1953 studied privately with Boris Porena in Rome.
In 1969, he moved to Canada and lived there for the next nine years. He completed his Doctor of Music at the University of Toronto in 1974 and also taught there as well as the University of Victoria, the Waterloo Lutheran University, and the University of Guelph before joining the music faculty of the University of Oregon in 1978. Healey returned to England in 1988 when he became academic professor of music at the RAF School of Music. He retired from teaching in 1996 and settled in Brooklyn, New York but has continued to actively compose, particularly for wind ensemble, saxophone octet, solo voice, choir and organ.

Selected Works

Stage