George Benjamin (composer)

Biography

Benjamin was born in London and attended Westminster School. He studied piano privately with Marguerite Tury from 1967–1974. He wrote his first composition at the age of nine, and took piano and composition lessons with Peter Gellhorn until age 15, after which Gellhorn arranged for Benjamin to continue his lessons in Paris with Olivier Messiaen, whom he had known for many years. Messiaen was reported to have described Benjamin as his favourite pupil. He then read music at King's College, Cambridge, studying under Alexander Goehr and Robin Holloway.

Benjamin's orchestral piece Ringed by the Flat Horizon (written for the Cambridge University Musical Society and premiered in Cambridge under the baton of Mark Elder on 5 March 1980) was performed at The Proms that August, while he was still a student, making him the then-youngest living composer to have had music performed at the Proms. The London Sinfonietta and Sir Simon Rattle premiered At First Light two years later. Antara was commissioned by IRCAM for the 10th anniversary of the Pompidou Centre in 1987 and Three Inventions for chamber orchestra were written for the 75th Salzburg Festival in 1995. The London Symphony Orchestra under Pierre Boulez premiered Palimpsests in 2002 to mark the opening of ‘By George’, a season-long portrait which included the first performance of Shadowlines by Pierre-Laurent Aimard. More recent celebrations of Benjamin's work have taken place at Southbank Centre in 2012 (as part of the UK's Cultural Olympiad) and at the Barbican in 2016.

Benjamin has composed four operas, all with librettos by Martin Crimp. Their first operatic work was Into the Little Hill, commissioned in 2006 by the Festival d'Automne in Paris. It received its London premiere at the Royal Opera House in February 2009. Their second collaboration, Written on Skin, premiered at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in July 2012. Benjamin conducted the UK premiere at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in March 2013. Lessons in Love and Violence, their third collaboration over the period 2015–2017, premiered at the Royal Opera House in 2018. Their fourth opera collaboration, Picture a Day Like This, was commissioned by and first produced at the Aix Festival at the Théâtre du Jeu de Paume in 2023; Benjamin conducted with Marianne Crebassa as the woman.

As a conductor, Benjamin made his operatic debut in 1999 conducting Pelléas et Mélisande at La Monnaie, Brussels, and he has conducted numerous world premieres, including works by Wolfgang Rihm, Unsuk Chin, Gérard Grisey, and György Ligeti. In 1993, he curated the first Meltdown music festival in London and in 2010 he was the Music Director of the Ojai Music Festival in California. For the 2018–2019 season, Benjamin was composer-in-residence with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. In January 2025, the London Philharmonic Orchestra announced the appointment of Benjamin as its next composer-in-residence, effective September 2025.

For sixteen years, Benjamin taught composition at the Royal College of Music, London, where he became the first Prince Consort Professor of Composition before succeeding Sir Harrison Birtwistle as Henry Purcell Professor of Composition at King's College London in January 2001. His pupils include Luke Bedford, Robin de Raaff, and Dai Fujikura.

Honours

In 2019, Benjamin was awarded the Golden Lion Award for lifetime achievement from the Venice Biennale. Other awards include the 2001 Arnold Schönberg Prize, the 2015 Prince Pierre of Monaco composition prize (for his opera Written on Skin), and 2023 the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize. In 2022, Benjamin received the Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Works Collection. For 2023, he received the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award.

In 2019, critics at The Guardian ranked Written on Skin as the second best work of the 21st-century. In 2024, Picture a day like this received an Ivor Novello Award nomination for Best Stage Work Composition.

An honorary fellow of King's College Cambridge, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Royal College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music, Benjamin is also an Honorary Member of the Royal Philharmonic Society. He is foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. He was awarded a C.B.E. in 2010, made a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2015, and was knighted in the 2017 Queen's Birthday Honours.

Personal life

Benjamin lives in northwest London with his partner, the filmmaker Michael Waldman, whose credits include The Day John Lennon Died, The Scandalous Adventures of Lord Byron, and the TV miniseries Musicality.

Works

Source

Opera

• Into the Little Hill (2006): libretto by Martin Crimp
• Written on Skin (2009–2012): libretto by Martin Crimp
• Lessons in Love and Violence (2015–2017): libretto by Martin Crimp
• Picture a Day Like This (2023): libretto by Martin Crimp

Orchestral

• Ringed by the Flat Horizon for orchestra (1979–1980)
• A Mind of Winter for soprano and orchestra (1981, text: Wallace Stevens)
• Sudden Time for large orchestra (1989–1993)
• Three Inventions for chamber orchestra (1993–1995)
• Sometime Voices for baritone, chorus and orchestra (1996, text: William Shakespeare)
• Palimpsests for orchestra (2000–2002)
• Dance Figures, nine choreographic scenes for orchestra (2004)
• Duet for piano and orchestra (2008)
• Dream of the Song for countertenor, female chorus and orchestra (2014–2015, texts: Solomon Ibn Gabirol and Samuel HaNagid, trans. Peter Cole; Federico García Lorca)
• Concerto for Orchestra (2021)

Ensemble

• Octet for 8 players (1978)
• At First Light for 14 players (1982)
• Antara for 16 players and electronics (1987)
• Upon Silence for mezzo-soprano and viols/strings (1990, text: William Butler Yeats)
• Olicantus for 15 players (2002)

Chamber and instrumental

• Piano Sonata (1977–1978)
• Flight for solo flute (1979)
• Three Studies for piano (1982–1985)
• Viola, Viola for viola duo (1997)
• Shadowlines – six canonic preludes for piano (2001)
• Three Miniatures for solo violin (2001–2002)
• Piano Figures – ten short pieces for piano (2004)

References

References

1. (2017). "Debrett's People of Today 2017". Debrett's Peerage Limited.
2. [https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000045767?rskey=8DChUf&result=1 Anderson, Julian. 'Benjamin, George (William John)' in ''Grove Music Online'']
3. [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/feb/16/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries Obituary, 'Peter Gellhorn' in ''The Guardian'', 16 February 2004]
4. Angelique Chrisafis, [https://www.theguardian.com/france/story/0,,1956703,00.html "British composer's 20-year opera quest ends with Paris premiere"] {{Webarchive. link. (19 July 2020 . ''The Guardian'' (London), 25 November 2006)
5. Gavin Thomas. "George Benjamin: Overview". online at Composition:Today.
6. "London Symphony Orchestra – Rattle: the exhibition".
7. "Antara".
8. "Three Inventions for Chamber Orchestra".
9. George Benjamin,[https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2002/sep/20/artsfeatures1 "My heroes and I"] , ''The Guardian'' (London), 20 September 2002: He was artistic consultant to the BBC's 3-year retrospective of 20th-century music for the Millennium, 'Sounding the Century'. There have been major retrospectives of his work in London, Pris, Tokyo, Brussels, Berlin, Strasbourg, San Francisco and Madrid.
10. (21 March 2016). "Benjamin at the Barbican, Barbican, London — 'The power of suggestion'".
11. Clements, Andrew. (14 May 2012). "Jubilation: The Music of George Benjamin – review". The Guardian.
12. Jeal, Erica. (10 March 2013). "Written on Skin – review". The Guardian.
13. Andrew Clements. (2018-05-11). "''Lessons in Love and Violence'' review – soaring tale of a brutal royal downfall". The Guardian.
14. Andrew Clements. (2023-09-24). "''Picture a day like this review'' – Benjamin's modern fairytale of sparse and moving beauty". The Guardian.
15. Allison, John. Report from Aix-en-Provence. ''[[Opera (British magazine). Opera]]'', September 2023, Vol. 74 No. 9, p1063.
16. "George Benjamin".
17. "Hamburg Concerto".
18. Service, Tom. (18 March 2013). "A guide to Gérard Grisey's music". The Guardian.
19. Dixon, Gavin. (6 February 2018). "Contemporary composer: Unsuk Chin".
20. Swed, Mark. (15 June 2009). "Review: eighth blackbird and other new music at Ojai Music Festival". Los Angeles Times.
21. "Composer in Residence 2018/2019".
22. (14 January 2025). "London Philharmonic Orchestra announces Sir George Benjamin as new Composer-in-Residence". London Philharmonic Orchestra.
23. "Robin De Raaff".
24. Tom Service. (4 February 2005). "I'm inspired by Stockhausen, Xenakis ... and Seinfeld". [[The Guardian]].
25. "George Benjamin {{!}} Delphian Records".
26. "Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco".
27. (31 January 2023). "Komponist George Benjamin erhält Ernst von Siemens Musikpreis – neue musikzeitung".
28. Ophelia, Maya. (2022-11-15). "The Ivors Composer Awards 2022 winners announced".
29. "BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award 2023".
30. (12 September 2019). "The best classical music works of the 21st century". [[The Guardian]].
31. Taylor, Mark. (2024-10-15). "Nominations for The Ivors Classical Awards 2024 announced".
32. "George Benjamin".
33. "Ledamöter".
34. Announcement in ''The London Gazette'', Issue 59446, 12 June 2010, p. 7
35. [https://barenboimsaid.de/george_benjamin_composers_club] {{Dead link. (August 2025)
36. {{London Gazette. (17 June 2017)
37. "George Benjamin – Works".