LONDON

Geoffrey Burgon, composer for film and TV, dies at 69

Geoffrey Burgon, the composer whose soundtrack for the television production of “Brideshead Revisited” became a hit recording, has died at age 69, his publisher said.

Burgon also contributed to Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” and produced music for “Dr. Who,” “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” “The Chronicles of Narnia” and other productions.

Burgon died Tuesday after a short illness, according to his publisher, Chester Music.

Burgon’s score for the television adaptation of “Brideshead” sold 100,000 copies.

He first gained attention in 1976 when his “Requiem” was performed at the Three Choirs Festival in western England.

He is survived by his wife, their son and a son and a daughter from a previous marriage.

CLAREMONT, Calif.

Professor, popular author Judith Merkle Riley dies at 68

Judith Merkle Riley, a longtime associate professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and the author of best-selling historical novels, has died. She was 68.

Riley died of ovarian cancer Sept. 12 at her home in Claremont, Calif., said her daughter, Elizabeth Riley.

Riley, who taught under her maiden name, joined the government department faculty at Claremont McKenna and the faculty of Claremont Graduate School in 1982.

She taught organization and management, public and comparative administration, political ideologies, and health care and public policy. In 1985, she became the first woman to obtain tenure in the government department at the college, which was founded as Claremont Men’s College and became coeducational in 1976.

“Judith was a supremely gifted storyteller, teacher and colleague, with penetrating social-science insights as to the various ways that people arrange their lives, with a special flair for the odd, outlandish, dramatic and funny ones,” Ward Elliott, a longtime friend and colleague, said in an obituary on the college website.

As an author, Riley wrote six historical novels that were published between 1989 and 1999.

 

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