George Benjamin

Born in 1960, Benjamin studied composition with Olivier Messiaen and piano with Yvonne Loriod at the Paris Conservatoire before completing his studies in Cambridge under Alexander Goehr. His first orchestral work Ringed by the Flat Horizon was performed at the BBC Proms when he was only 20. As conductor he has enjoyed close associations with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and he has taught composition at King’s College London for over 20 years. He has written four operas with Martin Crimp: Into the Little Hill (Festival d’Automne in Paris, 2006), Written on Skin (Aix-en-Provence Festival, 2012), Lessons in Love and Violence (Royal Opera House, 2018) and Picture a day like this (Aix-en-Provence Festival, 2023). Recent retrospectives of his music have taken place in Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne, Stockholm, Amsterdam and Paris. Benjamin is a Commandeur dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres, an Honorary Member of the Royal Philharmonic Society and he was knighted in 2017. Awards include the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale (2019), the Grand Prix artistique 2022 de la Fondation Simone et Cino Del Duca at the Institut de France, the Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Works Collection (2022) and the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize (2023).