George Benjamin is one of the outstanding composers of his generation. Born in 1960, Benjamin started to play the piano at the age of seven, and began composing almost immediately. In 1976 he entered the Paris Conservatoire to study with Olivier Messiaen (composition) and Yvonne Loriod (piano), after which he studied under Alexander Goehr at King's College Cambridge.
His first orchestral work, Ringed by the Flat Horizon, was played at the BBC Proms when he was just 20; since then it has achieved a remarkable international performance record, as have his two subsequent works, A Mind of Winter and At First Light. Antara was a commission from IRCAM to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Pompidou centre in 1987. Benjamin conducted the first performances of Sudden Time at the first Meltdown Festival in 1993, and Three Inventions for Chamber Orchestra at the 75th Salzburg Festival in 1995.
The LSO and Pierre Boulez gave the world premiere of Palimpsests in 2002 to mark the opening of the LSO's season-long retrospective of his work at the Barbican, "By George", a project which also included the premiere of Shadowlines by Pierre-Laurent Aimard. In recent years there have been numerous other major retrospectives of his work, including Brussels (Ars Musica, 2003), Tokyo (Tokyo Opera City, 2003), Berlin (DSO, 2004-5), Strasbourg (Musica Festival, 2005) Madrid (Spanish National Orchestra, 2005) and the Lucerne (2008).
The centrepoint of a large-scale portrait at the 2006 Festival d'Automne in Paris was his first operatic work, Into the Little Hill, a collaboration with the English playwright Martin Crimp, which has toured widely on both sides of the Atlantic since its premiere and won the Royal Philharmonic Society’s 2008 Award for Large-Scale Composition. It received its London premiere in a new production - a collaboration between the Opera Group and London Sinfonietta - at the Royal Opera House in February 2009, where it will return in July 2010. His most recent work, Duet for Piano and Orchestra, was commissioned by Roche for the Lucerne Festival. He is currently engaged on a second operatic collaboration with Martin Crimp, to be premiered at the Aix en Provence festival in July 2012.
He has built up a close relationship with the Tanglewood Festival in America since his first appearance there in 1999. As a conductor he regularly appears with some of the world's leading ensembles and orchestras, amongst them the London Sinfonietta, Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Intercontemporain, the BBC Symphony, Philharmonia, Cleveland and Concertgebouw orchestras and the Berlin Philharmonic. In 1999 he made his operatic debut conducting Pelléas et Mélisande at la Monnaie, Brussels. He has conducted numerous world premieres, including important works by Rihm, Chin, Grisey and Ligeti and his repertoire stretches from Schumann and Wagner to Knussen, Abrahamsen and Murail. In January 2010 there were extensive celebrations marking Benjamin’s 50th birthday given by the San Francisco Symphony and at London’s South Bank, and in June he will be in residence at the Ojai Festival in California and at the Aldeburgh festival.
The founding curator of the Southbank’s Meltdown Festival, George Benjamin was artistic consultant to the BBC’s three-year retrospective of twentieth century music, Sounding the Century. He is a Chevalier dans l’ordre des Arts et Lettres and is a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts. An honorary fellow of the Guildhall School, the Royal Academy and the Royal College of Music, he was awarded the Deutsche Symphonie Orchester's first ever Schoenberg Prize for composition. He lives in London, and since 2001 has been the Henry Purcell Professor of Composition at King‘s College, London.
Forthcoming performances:
Duet (national premiere)
3 & 4.6.10, Concertgebouw, Netherlands: David Robertson/Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest
Into the Little Hill
11.6.10, Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, United Kingdom: London Sinfonietta/Claire Booth/Susan Bickley/Franck Ollu
Into the Little Hill
12.6.10, OJAI festival California, USA: Anu Komsi/Ensemble Modern/George Benjamin/Hilary Summers
At First Light
12.6.10, Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, United Kingdom: Britten Sinfonia/Pierre-Laurent Aimard
Canon & Fugue (from The Art of Fugue) (national premiere)
12.6.10, Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, United Kingdom: Britten Sinfonia
At First Light
13.6.10, Libbey Bowl, Ojai Music Festival, USA: Ensemble Modern/George Benjamin
Viola, Viola
13.6.10, Libbey Bowl, Ojai Music Festival, USA
Into the Little Hill
18.6.10, Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, United Kingdom: Claire Booth/London Sinfonietta/Susan Bickley/George Benjamin
Palimpsests
19.6.10, Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, United Kingdom: CBSO/Jonathan Nott
Upon Silence
19.6.10, Aldeburgh Festival, Britten Studio, Snape, United Kingdom: London Sinfonietta/Susan Bickley/George Benjamin
Shadowlines
19.6.10, Aldeburgh Festival, Britten Studio, Snape, United Kingdom
Piano Figures
24.6.10, Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, United Kingdom: Pierre-Laurent Aimard
Dance Figures
24.6.10, Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, United Kingdom: Oliver Knussen/Britten-Pears Orchestra
Into the Little Hill
10.7.10, Buxton Festival, Derbyshire, United Kingdom: London Sinfonietta/cond. Frank Ollu
Into the Little Hill
18.7.10, Latitude Festival, Southwold, United Kingdom: London Sinfonietta/cond. Frank Ollu
Into the Little Hill
23.7.10, Linbury Studio Theatre, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, United Kingdom: London Sinfonietta/cond. Frank Ollu
Into the Little Hill
24.7.10, Linbury Studio Theatre, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, United Kingdom: London Sinfonietta/cond. Frank Ollu
Into the Little Hill
26.7.10, Linbury Studio Theatre, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, United Kingdom: London Sinfonietta/cond. Frank Ollu
Duet (London premiere)
2.8.10, BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall, London, United Kingdom: Jonathan Nott/BBC Symphony Orchestra
Three Inventions for Chamber Orchestra
6.8.10, BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall, London, United Kingdom: Birmingham Contemporary Music Group/George Benjamin
At First Light
25.9.10, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, United Kingdom: Members of the Concertgebouw Orchestra/George Benjamin
Fantasy on Iambic Rhythm
19.10.10, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, United Kingdom
Fantasy on Iambic Rhythm
23.11.10, Cologne Philharmonie, Cologne, Germany: Pierre-Laurent Aimard
Into the Little Hill (national premiere)
2.12.10, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona, Spain: London Sinfonietta/cond. Frank Ollu