Sher Ali Mirza CBE MA (Ebor) MMus (Leeds) ARCO Dip CHD

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Sher Mirza  (1986 – ), of Bramble Cottage, Woolfont Parva, is an English (British Pakistani) educator, scholar, musicologist, occasional recording artist, and composer. He is the Deputy Headmaster, and one of the English masters and Music masters, at the Beechbourne Free School. He is a Deputy Chairman, Board of Governors, the Agincourt Housing Association Trust; the heir apparent to the heir designate to the Nawab of Hubli (HH Abdul Ali Aftab Mirza Khan), his uncle and cousin; a composer & keyboardist; the composer-in-residence, the Beechbourne Free School; conductor of the Woolfont Consort; and has been awarded the Bach Prize of the Royal Academy of Music and the Queen’s Medal for Music. He is notably the composer of Bach in Euanthia: Twelve Canons and Fugues upon the Seikilos Epitaph.

Life
Born the only son to Muhammed Alam Javed Mirza MBE and his wife Emily, née Felton (a distant descendant of the Methwold family, Marquesses Breckland and Swaffham), he grew up with his sisters and parents in Adel, Leeds, West Yorks (West Riding of Yorkshire), and attended BGS as a day boy. He took a degree in English at York,where he was a member of Alcuin College, followed by an MA in English Literary Studies there; he then secured an MMus from Leeds. He is notably the only observant Muslim to have become, purely as a musicologist, an expert upon the liturgical and service music and hymnody of the Church of England.

He subsequently qualified for the Associateship Diploma (ARCO) and Choral Directing Diploma (Dip CHD) of the Royal College of Organists, all in secular works.

It was however other personal and unreconciled contradictions which bid fair to cut short a promising career, as Mr Mirza has acknowledged: having realised himself to be bisexual, he began to drink to excess (that being itself a violation of his religious principles), as a displacement to these temptations; and he soon descended into alcoholism. Ashamed equally of his bisexuality and of his drinking, Mr Mirza denied himself contact with his family, and began also to avoid his friends.

The Duke of Taunton, hearing of this (undoubtedly from his friend, Sher Mirza’s uncle the Nawab of Hubli), intervened, and offered Sher Mirza a place in the Woolfonts, a recovery programme, and, upon its first stage completion, a post at the Free School in Beechbourne, beginning as one of the English masters for the upper forms (there being then no places for a Music master).

In recovery, Mr Mirza has become a master in English and Music, and, recently, Deputy Headmaster as well; and his keyboard compositions, particularly the Bach Prize winning Bach in Euanthia: Twelve Canons and Fugues upon the Seikilos Epitaph,  secured for him the Queen’s Medal for Music.

Family
His father, Alam Mirza MBE, formerly a company director, is now the Executive of the Agincourt Housing Association Trust; the family have removed to the Downlands accordingly, outside Cliff Ambries. Emily Mirza is a distant descendant of the Methwolds, of an illegitimate branch established in Tudor times in the wool trade; she was formerly a member of the Church of England. Their daughters, Sher Mirza’s sisters, are Ameena, Noor, and Sharmeen, of whom the former married, in July of 2017, the newly qualified architect, Tariq Hussein Aamir Ali Khan Alvi Baig the elder son of Mr and Mrs Sohail Ali Khan Alvi Baig of Guiseley, W Riding Yorks, who has joined a practice in Beechbourne.

Mr Alam Mirza is the elder brother of HH the Begum of Hubli, who married their distant cousin the Nawab of Hubli, HH Abdul Ali Aftab Mirza Khan; Alam Mirza is the designated successor to His Highness, who is childless, and Sher Mirza is his father’s heir apparent.

Career
Sher Mirza is the current Deputy Headmaster of the Beechbourne Free School, as well as making one of the Music and English masters there are serving as its composer-in-residence; he also conducts the Woolfont Consort. He has continued to write and to compose.

Controversies
Some years ago, on the last occasion on which he ‘fell off the wagon’, he had a brief liaison, whilst blacked out (although to all appearances functioning), at Bristol Pride: with, to the subsequent horror of both, the then single Christopher (‘Kit’), Duke of Trowbridge and Warminster, cousin to HG the Duke of Taunton. They were at the time unknown to one another.

In 2013, three pupils who were failing to pass their courses attempted to bring baseless charges of pædophilia against Mr Mirza; which being swiftly shown as baseless, escalated to their attempting to murder him in an arson fire at his residence.

Mr Mirza fell irretrievably in love with the Revd (now Canon) Noel Paddick upon the latter’s arrival as Rector in the Woolfonts. Canon Paddick, much to his surprise, found himself capable, were it allowed, of reciprocating these feelings, but both men have renounced acting upon these, for religious reasons: despite which, most of their neighbours wish they might, regarding them as potentially a ‘perfect couple’.

Publications
Mr Mirza has written extensively upon musicology and upon English Literature.

Select Bibliography
The Shadow of the Raj in Nineteenth Century English Literature

<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal">Mr Kipling’s Adopted Sons

<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal">Pale Hands: An Analysis of Amy Woodforde-Finden’s “Kashmiri Song” and How It Took the World By Storm

<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal">Principles of Fugal Composition

<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal">Imperial Echoes: Imperial Patronage of Music and Literature in Mughal, Durrani, and British Pakistan

Notable Compositions
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal">Bach in Euanthia: Twelve Canons and Fugues upon the Seikilos Epitaph

<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal">Twenty Canons and Fugues Upon British Folk-songs

<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal">Fantasia for Organ and Orchestra in D

<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal">Occasional Music for Henry V (choir and orchestra)

<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal">Mehrgarh Suite

<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal">Song of the High Pamirs <p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal">Fantasia Upon British Folk Tunes (ostensibly anonymously for the wedding of TG the Duke and Duchess of Taunton in 2017)

Discography
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal">(as tenor, The Fonts) (see article, The Fonts)