George Benjamin

Born in 1960, George Benjamin began composing at the age of seven. In 1976 he entered the Paris Conservatoire to study with Messiaen, after which he worked with Alexander Goehr at King's College, Cambridge. When Benjamin was only 20 years old, Ringed by the Flat Horizon was played at the BBC Proms and two years later At First Light was premiered by the London Sinfonietta and Sir Simon Rattle. This season the Composer Festival at Konzerthaus Stockholm and Radio France's Festival Présences are both dedicated to Benjamin’s work. He will conduct at both, including a performance of Written on Skin in the Paris Philharmonie and then returns to the Philharmonia Orchestra with a concert in London in celebration of his sixtieth birthday. Benjamin’s first operatic work Into the Little Hill, written with playwright Martin Crimp, was commissioned in 2006 by the Festival d'Automne in Paris. Their second opera, Written on Skin, premiered at the Aix-en-Provence festival in July 2012, and their third collaboration, Lessons in Love and Violence, was premiered at the Royal Opera House in May 2018. Benjamin is the Henry Purcell Professor of Composition at King‘s College London. His works are published by Faber Music and are recorded on Nimbus Records. He has received numerous honorary fellowships and international awards, was made a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2015 and was knighted in the 2017 Birthday Honours.