1928 in British music

This is a summary of 1928 in music in the United Kingdom.

Events

• April - While studying under Frank Bridge, 15-year-old Benjamin Britten composes his String Quartet in F.
• 9 August - Percy Grainger marries Swedish artist Ella Ström at the Hollywood Bowl.
• September - Benjamin Britten goes as a boarder to Gresham's School, in Holt, Norfolk.
• date unknown
  • Edward German is knighted for services to music.
  • Eric Fenby begins work as amanuensis for Frederick Delius.
  • Malcolm Sargent becomes conductor of the Royal Choral Society.
  • Arnold Bax begins taking an annual working holiday in Morar, in the west Scottish Highlands.

Popular music

• Noël Coward - "World Weary"

Classical music: new works

• Granville Bantock - Pagan Symphony
• Arthur Bliss - Pastoral 'Lie strewn the white flocks'
• Hamilton Harty - Suite for Cello and Piano
• Gustav Holst - A Moorside Suite
• John Ireland - Two Songs, 1928
• Cyril Rootham - "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity"
• Ralph Vaughan Williams - Te Deum in G major
• William Walton - Sinfonia Concertante

Opera

• William Henry Bell - The Mouse Trap; libretto after The Sire de Maletroit's Door by Robert Louis Stevenson

Musical theatre

• The Good Old Days of England, music by Percy Fletcher, libretto by Oscar Asche

Births

• 17 January - Matt McGinn, folk singer (died 1977)
• 8 February - Osian Ellis, harpist
• 6 March - Ronald Stevenson, composer and pianist (died 2015)
• 13 March - Ronnie Hazlehurst, conductor and composer (died 2007)
• 2 April - April Cantelo, soprano
• 4 April
  • Jimmy Logan, entertainer (died 2001)
  • Monty Norman, singer and composer of the James Bond signature tune
• 19 April - Alexis Korner, blues musician and historian (died 1984)
• 27 May - Thea Musgrave, composer
• 6 July - Peter Glossop, operatic baritone (died 2008)
• 16 July - Bryden Thomson, orchestral conductor (died 1991)
• 26 August - Andrew Porter, music critic (died 2015)
• 6 October - Flora MacNeil, singer in Scottish Gaelic (died 2015)

Deaths

• 1 March - Sir Herbert Brewer, organist and composer (born 1865)
• 27 March - Leslie Stuart, musical theatre composer (born 1863)
• 13 May - David Thomas, composer (born 1881)
• 21 June - Marie Novello, pianist (born 1898)
• 12 September - Howard Talbot, conductor and composer (born 1865)
• 30 October - Percy Anderson, D'Oyly Carte stage designer (born 1851)
• 26 November - Herbert Sullivan, nephew and biographer of Sir Arthur Sullivan (born 1868)