Died On This Date (July 5, 2010) David Fanshawe / Respected Ethnomusicologist
David Fanshawe
April 19, 1942 – July 5, 2010
David Fanshawe was a revered English ethnomusicologist and sometime composer who created music for television shows and more. After high school, he began to study music in college while working as a film editor and traveling the world during holidays. While on these excursions, many times hitchhiking, Fanshawe took along a tape recorder to capture the traditional folk songs of the people he encountered along the way. This continued, but much more extensively upon his graduation. Meanwhile, Fanshawe was also composing music, much of it for English television and film scores. Many of his pieces incorporated the field music he recorded during his travels. Samples of these recordings can also be heard in such American films as Gangs Of New York and How To Make an American Quilt. In all, Fanshawe’s collection grew to over 2000 hours of music and over 6000 photographs. David Fanshawe was 67 when he died of a stroke on July 5, 2010.