A centenary concert will take place this year to celebrate 100 years since the birth of well-loved Caius composer Peter Tranchell.

Peter Andrew Tranchell was Precentor and Director of Studies in Music at Caius until he retired in 1989. Known affectionately as PAT, Peter was a Life Fellow from 1989 until his death at the age of 71 on September 14, 1993.

Preparations are under way for a concert in the capital to celebrate Tranchell’s life, with the Gonville & Caius College Choir set to take centre stage.

The Chair of The Peter Tranchell Foundation, Dr Chris Henshall (Psychology 1972), said: “The event will take the form of a musical soirée followed by a reception, with both serious and lighter music, and including pieces newly commissioned for the centenary, as well as some PAT old favourites!”

The Foundation’s other plans for the year include making “all significant PAT compositions” freely available in typeset performing editions as well as promoting recordings of his music.

Born in India on July 14, 1922, Tranchell was educated at Clifton College, Bristol, and King’s College, Cambridge, before serving in the Army during the Second World War.

He later went on to teach in Eastbourne before taking up a lectureship at Cambridge in 1950, becoming Fellow and Director of Music at Caius in 1960.

An esteemed composer, Tranchell’s repertoire includes the opera The Mayor of Casterbridge, ballets Falstaff and Images of Love, musical comedy Zuleika and cantatas This Sorry Scheme of Things and The Joyous Year. In between writing for the West End and teaching, he composed a wide range of church music.

Dr Henshall said: “Peter is remembered by those he taught and mentored at Caius for his kindness and generosity, his dedication to the Choir and music in College, and for his mischievous sense of humour. He composed a large body of music for the Chapel Choir, often working late into the night - with the lights burning in his rooms in Gonville Court - to finish works lovingly crafted for the voices and instruments available for particular occasions.”

Tranchell’s humour can be spotted in an autograph score of his “Wotherspoon” Magnificat in 1970, pictured above, where he made a dedication to a mysterious Dr Wotherspoon.

Dr Henshall said: “The Wotherspoon Mag and Nunc was written initially for the Male Voice Choir which sang in Chapel in the 1960s and 70s, and then adapted for sopranos after the admission of women to the College. The dedication to someone who was repeatedly booked into a Fellows’ guest room but never materialised shows Peter at his most playful. Did Dr Wotherspoon exist, or was one of the Fellows misusing the booking system? We will probably never know, though tongues may loosen as Caians come together in this centenary year to share memories!"

Further information about the Centenary Soirée and Reception and other events will be released later in the year.

The Foundation has set up a Centenary Appeal to raise funds to promote Tranchell’s work, with a target of £28,000. For more details and to donate, click here.