Alan Clifford Frank, was a music publisher, clarinetist and composer, who headed the Oxford University Press Music Department between 1954 and 1975. He was married to the composer Phyllis Tate.
Frank grew up in the Brixton area of London. His mother Fanny played the violin and had been taught by Joseph Joachim. Gaining a scholarship to Dulwich College he studied clarinet with Thurston Dart. In 1927 he began working at the music department of Oxford University Press under Hubert Foss. There he met Phyllis Tate. They were married in 1935. They had two children: a son Colin, born in 1940 and a daughter Celia, in 1952.
During the war Frank served as an intelligence officer for the RAF and was posted to Ceylon. After the war he returned to OUP, becoming head of the Music Department in 1954 and remained there until his retirement in 1975. At the OUP offices Frank worked with composers including Ralph Vaughan Williams, William Walton, Alan Rawsthorne and Alun Hoddinott.
Frank kept up his interest in the clarinet. The Suite for Two Clarinets is his only composition to have maintained its place in the teaching repertoire.