George Benjamin (composer)

George William John Benjamin, CBE (born 31 January 1960) is an English composer of classical music. He is also a conductor, pianist and teacher.

Benjamin was born in London, attended Westminster School and then studied with Olivier Messiaen at the Paris Conservatoire during the second half of the 1970s. Messiaen was reported to have described Benjamin as his favourite pupil. He then read music at King's College, Cambridge, studying under Alexander Goehr.

His 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 youngest living composer to have had music performed at the Proms. He followed this with two more works: A Mind of Winter in 1981 and At First Light (1982), but he then wrote little more until 1993.

In 1992–94, he helped Yvonne Loriod complete her husband Olivier Messiaen's last work, Concert à quatre. In 1993, he curated the first Meltdown music festival in London.

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.

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