Sally Beamish

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Sally Beamish
Born (1956-08-26) 26 August 1956 (age 68)
London, England
GenresClassical
OccupationComposer
Website sallybeamish.com

Sarah Frances Beamish OBE (born 26 August 1956) is a British composer and violist. Her works include chamber, vocal, choral and orchestral music. She has also worked in the field of music, theatre, film and television, as well as composing for children and for her local community.

Contents

Early life and education

Sarah Frances Beamish was born on 26 August 1956 in London, to William Anthony Alten Beamish and Ursula Mary Beamish (née Snow). [1] She attended the Camden School for Girls and the National Youth Orchestra. She studied viola at the Royal Northern College of Music, where she received composition lessons from Anthony Gilbert and Lennox Berkeley. She later studied in Germany at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold, with the Italian violist Bruno Giuranna. [2]

Career

As a violist in the Raphael Ensemble, she recorded four discs of string sextets. However, it was as a composer that she made her mark, particularly after moving from London to Scotland. She has written a large amount of music for orchestra, including two symphonies and several concertos (for violin, viola, cello, oboe, saxophone, saxophone quartet, trumpet, percussion, flute and accordion). She has also written chamber and instrumental music, film scores, theatre music, and music for amateurs.

In September 1993, Beamish received the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for outstanding achievement in composition. In 1994 and 1995 she co-hosted the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO) composers' course in Hoy with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. From 1998 to 2002, she was composer in residence with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and the SCO, for whom she wrote four major works. Beamish won a 'Creative Scotland' Award from the Scottish Arts Council which enabled her to write her oratorio for the 2001 BBC Proms – the Knotgrass Elegy premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus with Sir Andrew Davis.

Other works include three viola concerti, five string quartets, two percussion concerti (the second of which was written for Colin Currie with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Stanford Lively Arts and the Bergen Symphony Orchestra and premiered in 2012), and works for traditional instruments, including a concerto for clàrsach and fiddle concerto premiered by Catriona Mackay and Chris Stout in 2012. In December 2010, it was announced that Beamish had been selected as one of twenty composers to participate in the New Music 20x12 project as part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. Beamish will compose a new work for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment to be premiered in 2012. [3]

She has a series of recordings on the BIS label.

In December 2017, Northern Ballet premiered The Little Mermaid , [4] a full-length ballet with her orchestral score.

In 2012, and again in 2015, she was featured as BBC Radio 3's Composer of the Week. [5] In March 2016, Beamish was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's National Academy for science and the arts. [6] Beamish was presented with the 'Award for Inspiration' at the 2018 British Composer Awards. Beamish was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2020 Birthday Honours for services to music. [7]

In 2020, Beamish composed April for Sound World’s Coronavirus Fund for Freelance Musicians, a project supporting struggling musicians during the UK's COVID-19 lockdown. Written in memory of Ellis Marsalis Jr. who had died from Covid near the beginning of the pandemic, it was included on the album Reflections alongside specially written pieces by other composers such as Gavin Bryars, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Evelyn Glennie and Nico Muhly. [8]

Her Nine Fragments – String Quartet No. 4 is the set repertoire for the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition 2022. [9]

She is foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. [10]

Personal life

In 1988, she married Robert Irvine and they had two sons and a daughter. They separated in 2008. In 2019, she married Peter Thomson. [2] She has lived in Brighton, UK since 2018. She is a Quaker. [11]

Works

Sources

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References

  1. ↑ General Registrar's Office register of births 1956 Jul/Aug/Sep, Hammersmith 5C 990; Obituary of Tony Beamish by Oliver and Sally Beamish, published by Bryanston School "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original on 7 January 2014. Retrieved 23 November 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link). PDF format.
  2. 1 2 "Beamish, Sarah Frances, (Sally), (born 26 Aug. 1956), composer and viola player". WHO'S WHO & WHO WAS WHO. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U6914. ISBN   978-0-19-954088-4 . Retrieved 26 August 2021.
  3. ↑ "2012 Cultural Olympiad composers named". Gramophone. 10 December 2010. Retrieved 9 May 2011.NOTE This information needs an update
  4. ↑ "The Little Mermaid". Northern Ballet.
  5. ↑ "BBC Radio 3 – Composer of the Week, Sally Beamish (1956–), Early Works". BBC.
  6. ↑ "Fellows". The Royal Society of Edinburgh. 21 June 2016.
  7. ↑ "No. 63135". The London Gazette (Supplement). 10 October 2020. p. B11.
  8. ↑ "April". Sally Beamish. 26 July 2020. Retrieved 22 January 2022.
  9. ↑ "Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition 2022: Competition Schedule". Wigmore Hall. 4 April 2022. Retrieved 6 April 2022.
  10. ↑ "Ledamöter". Kungl. Musikaliska Akademien (in Swedish). Retrieved 12 November 2024.
  11. ↑ "Composer gives shell shock soldiers a musical voice". The Scotsman. 01 November 2014.
  12. ↑ "Sally Beamish". Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 8 January 2016.
  13. ↑ Lumas Winds: The Naming of the Birds, Champs Hill Records CHRCD170 (2024)
  14. ↑ "the Friend – Shaping words for remembrance". Thefriend.co.uk. Retrieved 26 July 2020.
  15. ↑ Birthdays Today, The Times August 26, 2020, page 27
  16. ↑ 'British String Trios', reviewed at MusicWeb International
  17. ↑ "Sally Beamish". Sallybeamish.com. Archived from the original on 6 March 2016. Retrieved 2 March 2016.
  18. ↑ Radio Times 7–13 Sept 2019 page 60
  19. ↑ Radio Times 9–15 October 2021, page 128
  20. ↑ Radio Times 30 September–6 October 2023, page 120
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