A TEENAGE composer is staging his own Edward Elgar festival to get more young people listening to his centuries-old music.

George Parris, 17, a pupil at St Edward’s School, in North Oxford, has persuaded leading experts to talk about the composer’s life, while fellow pupils will perform his work.

The sixth former, who says he has been inspired by Elgar to write his own music, admitted fellow teenagers were often put off by Elgar because they considered his work “classical, Victorian and vulgar.”

Yet he is keen to promote the charms of the Worcestershire composer’s music.

He said: “I came across Elgar when I was revising for my GCSEs. I selected a recording of his work The Apostles on my player, and I was blown away.

“The sound was amazing.

“I looked a bit more into it, and I realised how much I loved Elgar’s music.”

After researching the composer’s life for the past two years, George, a boarder at the school, who comes from Straford-upon-Avon, has now arranged the free festival, which is being held at the Woodstock Road school this weekend.

It features lectures from academic Paul Harper-Scott and composer Anthony Payne and a screening of Ken Russell’s biopic of the composer, Elgar.

A concert will include the first movement of Elgar’s Cello Concerto, Serenade for Strings and The Spirit of England.

He said: “Most young people don’t listen to Elgar because it is classical music and of a different age. They may know of him for being an historic English figure, but have not got past looking at him as the man on the £20 note.

“I’ve put together this festival to try and persuade other people my age to explore his music.”

Edward Elgar was born in 1857 and found fame as the favoured composer of the British Empire.

Self-taught and from a humble rural background, he ended his life as a knight of the realm and Master of the King’s Musick.

His most famous works include the Enigma Variations, including the ever-popular Nimrod and Pomp and Circumstance Marches and Land of Hope and Glory.

His young fan now wants to follow his hero to become a composer himself, and is planning to study music at university next year.

He said: “Like Elgar, I get my inspiration from the countryside. Since discovering his music, I have been to the places in the Malvern Hills that were so crucial as an inspiration to him, and I have really found I share a personal affinity with him.”

l lsloan@oxfordmail.co.uk