Alun Hoddinott was one of the most admired British composers of his generation and enjoyed remarkably consistent success after coming to international attention in his twenties. Spending his entire professional life in Cardiff, where for some years he ran the largest music department of any British university, he was also a champion of the arts in Wales, contributing greatly to the profile of Welsh writers, artists and musicians, as well as to the nation's cultural institutions.

Hoddinott was born in 1929 in Bargoed, Glamorganshire. His interest in music began at the age of 4, when his father, a schoolmaster, took him to a concert at which he heard the violin for the first time. This led to his taking up the instrument, and although from early on he composed occasional pieces for his own use, throughout his childhood his ambition was to be a violinist.

At 16, however, he won a composition scholarship and realised that he would have to choose between the two professions. Composition won, and studies at University College, Cardiff, were complemented by periodic trips to London for private tuition with the Australian composer Arthur Benjamin, whose rigorous approach to technique was a powerful influence on Hoddinott's development. Benjamin also insisted on taking his pupil to London concerts to hear repertoire far more eclectic than that on offer in Cardiff, and Hoddinott later came to see these experiences as among the most important of his early life.

About this time, too, Hoddinott began to visit regularly the Cheltenham Festival of British Music (predecessor to today's International Festival), where he met leading composers, including Alan Rawsthorne, who became a friend and offered criticism.

As a student Hoddinott was already having some success getting his work performed; but he was also aware of the necessity of finding other sources of income to support his composition, and in 1951 was appointed lecturer at the Welsh College of Music and Drama, a position he held for eight years. A breakthrough came in 1954 when he submitted a clarinet concerto to the Cheltenham Festival, which was at that time a showcase for new British music. Sir John Barbirolli, who was responsible for selecting all scores performed at the festival, liked the work and programmed it for a Hallé Orchestra concert, himself conducting the premiere, with another first-rank artist, Gervase de Peyer, playing the solo part. The great success of this occasion - the first significant performance of Hoddinott's music outside Wales - much enhanced his reputation and resulted in further performances and new commissions.

In 1959 Hoddinott became a lecturer at University College, Cardiff, so beginning an association with the university's music department that would last until his retirement from academia almost 40 years later. He became Reader in 1966 and in 1967 Professor and head of department. By this time his career as a composer was well established, and commissions arrived regularly from festivals, orchestras and the BBC. Teaching proved a happy counterbalance to composition: Hoddinott found that frequent contact with younger composers, many of whom were not afraid to express their opinions of his work, made him a more exacting critic of his own music. As a teacher, though never doctrinaire, he was, like his mentor Benjamin, meticulous about the craft of composition, and keen that his students should be highly proficient in technique.

Hoddinott's own mastery of technique and form meant that he was able to write with great facility. He also possessed a powerful work ethic (the demands of his teaching meant he often had to complete commissions late at night), and for most of his career new work appeared in profusion. He would bridle, though, if the word prolific were used, pointing out that a large proportion of his work was comparatively modest in scale.

Hoddinott retired from his university position in 1987, though he continued as artistic director of the Cardiff Festival of Music, which he had set up with his friend John Ogdon in 1967, for a further three years. This festival did much to educate Welsh audiences in contemporary music, and throughout his life he did a great deal to improve the lot of Welsh cultural institutions. He also maintained that Welsh musicians should resist the temptation to pursue their careers elsewhere, often writing new works for the younger generation of Welsh artists to perform. His position at the heart of the Welsh cultural Establishment was acknowledged at the opening of the Wales Millennium Centre in 2004 when he was presented with a medal by the Queen. Royal recognition also came in commissions for the Prince of Wales's investiture in 1969 and a one-minute fanfare for his marriage to Camilla Parker-Bowles in 2005.

Alun Hoddinott's music is characterised by immense energy and rhythmic drive, and often by lush instrumental colour. Although elements of his musical language are derived from the techniques of Schönberg, his works never abandon tonality and are more NeoRomantic than Modernist. At its best, his music combines consummate craftsmanship with thrilling immediacy, and several works, notably the 1989 BBC Proms commission Star Children, have enjoyed widespread and well-deserved popularity. Some critics felt, however, that the great ease with which he composed meant that he produced too much: one reviewer complained of a recital of Hoddinott's piano sonatas that they all sounded the same. Nevertheless, his output, which includes ten symphonies, five operas and a wealth of instrumental and chamber music, is a rich and important body of work.

An amiable but exacting man, Alun Hoddinott demanded the best of himself and frequently of his collaborators: at the rehearsals for his operas he liked to give his opinion on everything from the conductor's execution of his score to the make-up and costumes of the cast. Seldom, however, did his natural modesty and courtesy desert him.

Hoddinott received many awards and prizes, and in 1983 was appointed CBE. In 1953 he was married to Rhiannon Huws; she and a son survive him.

Alun Hoddinott, CBE, composer, was born on August 11, 1929. He died on March 12, 2008, aged 78