Tim Benjamin (composer)

Last updated

Tim Benjamin (born 1975) is an English composer.

Early life and education

Tim Benjamin was born in 1975, grew up in North London and attended Christ's Hospital school. [1] [2]

Contents

He studied composition at the Royal Northern College of Music under Anthony Gilbert, privately with Steve Martland and with Robert Saxton at the University of Oxford. [2]

He lives in Todmorden, West Yorkshire. [1] [ when? ]

Music

Benjamin composes chamber-sized one-act operas for performance in small theatres and non-standard spaces. [1]

His first opera The Bridge (to a libretto by David Edgar) won the Stephen Oliver Trust's Prize for Contemporary Opera [3] in 1994, resulting in its performance as part of the Covent Garden Festival in 1998. [4]

His second opera, The Corley Conspiracy , was performed in September 2007 at the Southbank Centre, London. [5]

His opera Emily (libretto by the composer) was first performed at the Todmorden Hippodrome in July 2013. [6]

His opera Madame X (libretto by Anthony Peter) was performed at the Grimeborn 2014 festival. [7]

His twin operas Rest In Peace (libretto translated and adapted by the composer, after Chekhov) and Silent Jack (libretto by the composer and Anthony Peter) were performed at the 2015 Tête-à-Tête Festival. [8]

Awards and recognition

Benjamin won the BBC Young Composer of the Year award in 1993 with his piece Antagony. [2]

In 1996 he won the Stephen Oliver Prize, for his first opera The Bridge (to a libretto by David Edgar). [3] The prize, which was worth £10,000, was awarded to a young composer for a new work of comic opera. During 1997 and 1998 the Stephen Oliver Trust worked with the Royal Northern College of Music and the 1998 BOC Covent Garden Festival to achieve the performance of his winning opera, and that of the 1994 winner, David Horne's Travellers. Both operas were brought to the stage in June 1998, as part of the 1998 Covent Garden Festival. [4]

Legacy

In 2015, Benjamin founded the Steve Martland Scholarship for young composers at the Sound and Music Summer School, in honour of his former mentor. [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hebden Bridge</span> Town in West Yorkshire, England

Hebden Bridge is a market town in the Calderdale district of West Yorkshire, England. It is in the Upper Calder Valley, 8 miles (13 km) west of Halifax and 14 miles (21 km) north-east of Rochdale, at the confluence of the River Calder and the Hebden Water. The town is the largest settlement in the civil parish of Hebden Royd.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Adès</span> British composer, pianist and conductor

Thomas Joseph Edmund Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor. Five compositions by Adès received votes in the 2017 Classic Voice poll of the greatest works of art music since 2000: The Tempest (2004), Violin Concerto (2005), Tevot (2007), In Seven Days (2008), and Polaris (2010).

<i>Billy Budd</i> (opera) 1951 opera by Benjamin Britten

Billy Budd, Op. 50, is an opera by Benjamin Britten to a libretto by the English novelist E. M. Forster and Eric Crozier, based on the short novel Billy Budd by Herman Melville. Originally in four acts, the opera received its premiere at the Royal Opera House (ROH), London, on 1 December 1951. Britten later revised the work into a two-act opera, with a prologue and an epilogue. The revised version received its first performance at the ROH, Covent Garden, London, on 9 January 1964.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steve Martland</span> English composer

Steve Martland was an English composer. He helped to curate the Factory Classical label of Factory Records, featuring contemporary British composers.

Stephen Michael Harding Oliver was an English composer, best known for his operas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Savonlinna Opera Festival</span>

Savonlinna Opera Festival is held annually in the city of Savonlinna in Finland. The Festival takes place at the medieval Olavinlinna, built in 1475. The castle is located amid spectacular lake scenery.

Philip Cashian is an English composer. He is the head of composition at the Royal Academy of Music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tobias Picker</span> American composer

Tobias Picker is an American composer, pianist, and conductor, noted for his orchestral works Old and Lost Rivers, Keys To The City, and The Encantadas, as well as his operas Emmeline, Fantastic Mr. Fox, An American Tragedy and Awakenings, among many other works.

Meredith Oakes is an Australian playwright who has lived in London since 1970. She has written plays, adaptations, translations, opera texts and poems, and taught play-writing at Royal Holloway College and for the Arvon Foundation. She also wrote music criticism before leaving Australia for The Daily Telegraph in Sydney, and from 1988 to 1991 for The Independent, as well as contributing to a variety of magazines including The Listener.

Cheryl Frances-Hoad is a British composer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gareth Williams (composer)</span> Irish musical artist (born 1977)

Gareth Patrick Williams is an Irish composer based at Edinburgh College of Art. He was the first composer in residence for Scottish Opera from 2012 to 2015. His work spans from opera and music theatre to chamber music.

David Horne is a Scottish composer, pianist, and teacher.

The Corley Conspiracy is an opera by Tim Benjamin to a libretto by Sean Starke, who also directed. The work premiered on 19 September 2007 in the Purcell Room at the Southbank Centre in London; the orchestral parts were played by the ensemble Radius. The opera was commissioned by the London Design Festival 2007.

Grimeborn is an annual East London musical theatre and opera festival which coincides with the world famous East Sussex Glyndebourne Opera Festival. Founded by Arcola Theatre’s artistic director Mehmet Ergen in 2007, the festival is held at Arcola Theatre in Dalston, East London. It takes place in and around August, and tends to showcase new and experimental works alongside radical productions of classic opera, using both the Arcola's performing stages.

Charlotte Bray is a British composer. She was championed by the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, London Sinfonietta and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, BBC Symphony Orchestra. Her music has been performed by many notable conductors such as: Sir Mark Elder, Oliver Knussen, Daniel Harding, and Jac van Steen.

Stephen McNeff is an Irish composer, best known for his work in contemporary theatre and opera.

The Francis Bacon Opera is a comic chamber opera in one act composed by Stephen Crowe. The libretto is based on Crowe's transcript of Melvyn Bragg's interview with the British artist Francis Bacon, filmed for The South Bank Show in 1985. The opera was first performed in its final version on 8 August 2012 in London, and went on to win the Hilton Edwards Award in May 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Lambert</span> English composer


Edward Lambert is an English composer who has written chamber music, vocal and choral works, and chamber operas. He is also a conductor and pianist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julian Philips</span> British composer (born 1969)

Julian Philips is a British composer. Philips' works have been performed at major music festivals, including The Proms, Tanglewood, Three Choirs Festival, at the Wigmore Hall, South Bank Centre and Berlin Philharmonic Chamber Music Hall and by international artists such as Gerald Finley, Dawn Upshaw, Sir Thomas Allen, the Vertavo String Quartet, the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra, the BBC orchestras and the Aurora Orchestra.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Benjamin, Tim (30 June 2013). "My Calder Valley". Hebden Bridge Times. Hebden Bridge . Retrieved 25 May 2016.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  2. 1 2 3 "Meet the Artist". The Cross Eyed Pianist. 2 August 2012. Retrieved 1 February 2018.
  3. 1 2 "The Stephen Oliver Trust". Stephenoliver.org. Retrieved 25 August 2010.
  4. 1 2 "News". Stephen Oliver. 2017. Retrieved 16 January 2022.
  5. ↑ "The Corley Conspiracy". Radius Opera. Retrieved 26 October 2021.
  6. ↑ "Review by John Clarke: Haunting, hypnotic, entrancing Emily". Todmordennews.co.uk. Retrieved 26 July 2020.
  7. ↑ Yehuda Shapiro (November 2014). "Review". Opera . Retrieved 10 November 2014– via exacteditions.com.(subscription required)
  8. ↑ "Life Stories". Tete-a-tete.org.uk. Retrieved 26 July 2020.
  9. ↑ "Summer School – The Steve Martland Scholarships". Soundandmusic.org. Retrieved 25 May 2016.
MusicalnotesUK.svg

This article about a British composer is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.