NEW CLASSICAL – ELEANOR ALBERGA

New Classical Featured Artist – 05/22/23 – 06/04/23

In this week’s playlist, we feature the works of Eleanor Alberga. She is a highly-regarded mainstream British composer with commissions from the BBC Proms and The Royal Opera, Covent Garden. With a substantial output ranging from solo instrumental works to full-scale symphonic works and operas, her music is performed all over the world. Born in 1949 in Kingston, Jamaica, Alberga decided at the age of five to be a concert pianist. Five years later, she was composing works for the piano.

In 1968 she won the biennial Royal Schools of Music Scholarship for the West Indies, which she took up in 1970 at the Royal Academy of Music in London studying piano and singing. A budding career as a solo pianist was soon augmented by composition with her arrival at The London Contemporary Dance Theatre in 1978. Under the inspirational leadership of its Artistic Director Robert Cohan, she became one of the very few pianists with the deepest understanding of modern dance, and her company class improvisations became the stuff of legend. These in turn led to works commissioned and conceived for dance by the company, and Alberga later became the company’s Musical Director – conducting, composing, and playing on LCDT’s many tours.

It was on leaving LCDT that Alberga was able to fully embark on her calling as a composer. Since then, interest in her music across all genres has accelerated, while her output has continued to grow. In 2015 her commissioned work ARISE, ATHENA! for the opening of the Last Night of the BBC Proms was seen and heard by millions, and cemented a reputation as a composer of huge originality and consummate skill. Alberga was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2021 for services to British Music. We’ll hear of the music of Eleanor Alberga and much more when you connect to Classical Music Indy Streaming’s  New Classical channel.