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• Operas: Full Circle (1968), chamber opera, libretto by Sidney Goosir Smith; Hermiston (1975) after R L Stevenson’s ‘Weir of Hermiston’; On the Razzle (1988) after Tom Stoppard.
• Incidental Music: A Winter’s Tale (Shakespeare) (1947); Oedipus at Colonus (Sophocles) (1950); Deirdre of the Sorrows (Synge), 1951.
• Orchestral: Overture ‘The Prospect of Whitby’ (1948); Italian Overture (1952); Rhapsody for strings (1956); Symphony in One Movement (1963); Symphony No.2 (1970-71); Symphony No.3 (1977-8); Sinfonietta Helvetica (1990–1).
• Chamber Music (selected list only): Cello Sonatina (1938); Violin Sonatina (1941); Viola Sonata (1947); Duo for violin and cello (1953); Sonata for violin and piano or harpsichord (1956); Violin Sonatina [no.2] (1960).
• Many short vocal and choral works; editions of Scottish songs.

Orr studied at the RCM, London and Pembroke College Cambridge, then with Casella in Siena and (after some years teaching in Somerset and at leeds University) with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. He returned to Cambridge in 1938 as organist at St John’s College. He served in the RAF during the war, then lectured at Cambridge and taught at the RCM 1950–56. Orr was Professor of Music at the Glasgow University from 1956–65 and Professor at Cambridge from 1965–76. After that he was Emeritus Professor. Robin Orr was chairman of the Scottish Opera since 1962.