Robert Farnon

24 JULY 1917 Birth of Canadian-English composer Robert FARNON in Toronto, Ontario. d-Guernsey, 23 APR 2005.
Farnon was commissioned as a captain in the Canadian Army and became the conductor/arranger of the Canadian Band of the Allied Expeditionary Force sent overseas during World War II, which was the Canadian equivalent of the American Band of the AEF led by Major Glenn Miller. At the end of the war, Farnon decided to make England his home, and he later moved to Guernsey in the Channel Islands with his wife and children. He was considered by his peers the finest arranger in the world, and his talents influenced many composer-arrangers including Quincy Jones, all of whom acknowledge his contributions to their work. Conductor Andre Previn called him "the greatest writer for strings in the world." Robert Farnon died at the age of eighty-seven at a hospice near his home of forty years in Guernsey. He was survived by five children.


Farnon Society Biography | WEB | IMAGES | SHOP Robert Farnon