Active over the past decade in film, television and theatre, composer Richard Blackford recently returned to writing concert music after receiving a commission for a cantata from the Royal Ballet School. The resulting Mirror of Perfection, inspired by a painting of the Porziuncla (the chapel where St. Francis spent much of his life), was premiered to acclaim at the Royal Festival Hall in February 1997. It was recorded in August 1998 with Bo Skovhus, Ying Huang and Bournemouth Sinfonietta under the direction of the composer and is to be released in select markets by Sony Classical in February. About the work The Independent wrote, "There's a crying need for this kind of music and not enough composers of consequence around who seem willing or able to meet it."

Blackford began receiving his first commissions while an assistant to Hans Werner Henze in Italy in the mid 70s. His Concerto for Seven (1976), Six Sappho Settings for soprano harp and string sextet (1976) and Sinfonie Poliziane for three orchestral groups (1977) all made an impression on the music world, and he soon secured publishing contracts with Schott and Oxford University Press. He was hailed by the Italian press as "the brightest new star in the constellation of the European avant-garde."

Established by 1977, he returned to his native England to found the music theatre department at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and continued to attract commissions. That same year he completed an opera, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, on a commission from the English village of Blewbury. The work was designed for performance by children and amateurs, and the experience led to a series of works for children: Dragon Songs of Granny Chang, the opera Gawain and Ragnall and the experimental opera-in-the-round The Pig, commissioned by the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, to a libretto by Ted Hughes. In 1983 the Royal College of Music invited Blackford to contribute a work celebrating the centenary of the institution. The result was a multimedia extravaganza, Metaphorphoses , which brought together dance, drama, music theatre and film and featured a large cast of singers, actors, dancers and musicians as well as filmed and taped components. The work was well received, and The Guardian praised the "sheer strength of the composer’s musical imagination."

Throughout the 80s, Blackford became increasingly involved in theatre and television. He composed incidental music for plays and a number of scores for television dramas and documentaries, including Ruth Rendell Mysteries, The Preston Front and A Little Bit of Lippy. After 1984, when he visited the United States, he devoted much of his attention to a stage musical, King, based on the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., with lyrics by Maya Angelou. The work received its premiere in London in 1990 and was revived in 1997 to help celebrate President Clinton’s second inauguration.

Richard Blackford was born in London in 1954 and was encouraged by his family to study music. While still at school he took composition lessons with Elisabeth Lutyens, who had been among the first British composers to adopt Schoenberg's twelve-tone method. Later Blackford enrolled at the Royal College of Music. The 19-year-old student's oratorio, The Dream of the Rood, received its first performance with the RCM choir and orchestra under the baton of the College’s director Sir David Willcocks.