Ernest Ford

Albert Ernest Alsor Clair Ford (17 February 1858 – 2 June 1919) was an English composer of operas and ballet music and a conductor.

Ford was born in Warminster, Wiltshire, England, the son of Edward Ford, the vestry clerk and organist there. From 1868 to 1873, he sang in the chorus at Salisbury Cathedral. He studied under Arthur Sullivan at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where, in 1875, he received the first Goss Scholarship. Ford studied in Paris under Édouard Lalo and also toured America. There, his motet, a setting of the Psalm Domine Deus, was performed at a celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of Harvard University. During the 1880s, Ford was the official accompanist at the Saturday Popular Concerts at St James's Hall, London. He also wrote a number of operas and operettas in the 1880s and early 1890s, including Daniel O' Rourke (1884); Nydia (a duologue by Justin H. M. Carthy, 1889); Joan (Robert Martin, 1890); and Weatherwise (1893).

Ford became the assistant musical director for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company at the Savoy Theatre in 1888, serving in this position for five years. In 1891, Ford and François Cellier conducted Sullivan's grand opera, Ivanhoe, which opened Richard D'Oyly Carte's Royal English Opera House. Ford also arranged the piano score for Ivanhoe. While serving as music director at the Savoy, Ford wrote the music for a one-act curtain raiser, Mr. Jericho, that premiered there in March 1893. The piece has a libretto by Harry Greenbank. In May of the same year, Ford supplied the music for the full-length J. M. Barrie and Arthur Conan Doyle comic opera, Jane Annie, a flop that nevertheless toured until September of that year.

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