Michael Berkeley
Life Peerage | |
---|---|
Personal details | |
Born | Michael Fitzhardinge Berkeley 29 May 1948 |
Nationality | British |
Political party | None (crossbencher) |
Residence(s) | London, England Wales |
Michael Fitzhardinge Berkeley, Baron Berkeley of Knighton, (born 29 May 1948) is an English composer, broadcaster on music and member of the House of Lords.
Early life
Berkeley is the eldest of the three sons of Elizabeth Freda (née Bernstein) (1923–2016) and the composer Sir Lennox Berkeley.[1] He was educated at The Oratory School, in Woodcote, and Westminster Cathedral Choir School.[2] He was a chorister at Westminster Cathedral, and he frequently sang in works composed or conducted by his godfather, Benjamin Britten. He studied composition, singing and piano at the Royal Academy of Music. He also played in a rock band, Seeds of Discord.[2] In his twenties, when he went to study with Richard Rodney Bennett, he concentrated on composition.
Prizes and posts
In 1977 he was awarded the Guinness Prize for Composition. In 1979, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra appointed Berkeley its associate composer. Berkeley was composer-in-association with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales from 2000 until 2009.[3] He also acted as visiting professor in Composition at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and was artistic director of the Cheltenham Music Festival from 1995 to 2004. In 2002 and 2003 he was international guest curator of chamber music programs at the Sydney Festival, Australia's largest arts festival.
Berkeley was appointed a
Berkeley is a Fellow of the Royal Northern College of Music[5] and an honorary Doctor of Music from the University of East Anglia and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music. He is President of the Presteigne Festival of Music and is also a Vice-President of the Joyful Company of Singers.
Membership of the House of Lords
In February 2013, it was announced that he would be made a life peer and enter the House of Lords as a crossbencher[6] and on 26 March 2013 he was created Baron Berkeley of Knighton, of Knighton in the County of Powys.[7]
In 2018 Michael Berkeley successfully instigated and steered through the House of Lords an Amendment to the
Compositions
Berkeley's compositions include an
In October 2009, his chamber opera For You, again with Ian McEwan as librettist, was premiered by Music Theatre Wales. A projected opera of McEwan's novel Atonement with libretto by Craig Raine for Dortmund Opera has been shelved.[10][11]
Berkeley has written a considerable amount of chamber and choral music, including the specially commissioned Listen, listen O my child for the enthronement of Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury in 2013.[12] and the Magna Carta Te Deum, for the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta in 2015. The harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani premiered Berkeley's Haiku 2: Insects at the Snape Maltings in April 2023.[citation needed]
Broadcasting
Berkeley is also known as a television and radio broadcaster on music. Between 1974 and 1979 he worked for BBC Radio 3 as a staff continuity announcer.[13][14] Also on Radio he contributed to Record Review (1972–77) and was a regular presenter of Mainly for Pleasure (1980–92) [15][16] and In Tune (1992–93).
Since 1995 Berkeley has presented BBC Radio 3's Private Passions,[2] in which celebrities are invited to choose and discuss several pieces of music. In December 1997, one of his guests was a 112-year-old Viennese percussionist called Manfred Sturmer, who told anecdotes about Brahms, Clara Schumann, Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg and others so realistically that some listeners did not realise that the whole thing was a hoax perpetrated by Berkeley and John Sessions. On 30 December 2018, King Charles, when Prince of Wales, was the guest on Private Passions, in order to mark the passing of over one thousand editions of the programme, and to celebrate the prince's 70th birthday.[17]
Personal life
Berkeley has been married twice. His first marriage was to the literary agent
See also
References
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/39902. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ a b c d e Stephen Moss (23 June 2000). "Public man, private passions". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 July 2016.
- ^ "BBC National Orchestra of Wales : Biography" (PDF). BBC. Retrieved 30 December 2016.
- ^ "No. 60173". The London Gazette (Supplement). 16 June 2012. p. 6.
- ^ "Fellows and Honorary Members". Royal Northern College of Music.
- ^ "House of Lords, official website – New peers announced". Parliament of the United Kingdom. Retrieved 27 February 2013.
- ^ "No. 60462". The London Gazette. 28 March 2013. p. 6195.
- ^ Walker, Peter (8 February 2019). "Tory MP who blocked upskirting bill halts FGM protection law". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 April 2019.
- ^ Libby Brooks (12 May 1999). "Lost opera tragedy for composer". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 July 2016.
- ^ "Atonement opera in the pipeline". BBC News. 19 March 2010. Retrieved 28 June 2015.
- ^ "We’ve had the book and film, now it’s Atonement the opera" by Ben Hoyle, The Times (London), 19 March 2010. Retrieved 19 March 2010. Subscription required.
- ISBN 978-0-19-339767-5. Retrieved 28 June 2015.
- ISBN 0-437-17600-2.
- ISBN 0-75380-250-3.
- ISBN 0-75380-250-3.
- ^ "BBC Genome Project". Mainly for Pleasure. Retrieved 1 December 2019.
- ^ "Private Passions: HRH The Prince of Wales". Retrieved 3 April 2019.
- ^ Ion Trewin (4 May 2014). "Deborah Rogers obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 July 2016.
- ^ Tim Ashley (28 July 2016). "BBCNOW/Van Steen at the Proms review – outpouring of grief and nostalgia". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 July 2016.
- ^ Lebrecht, Norman (16 June 2016). "Happy news: Composer remarries". Slipped Disc. Retrieved 20 June 2021.
External links
- Michael Berkeley's official website
- Michael Berkeley's webpage on his publisher's website, Oxford University Press
- Reviews of Music Theatre Wales's production of Jane Eyre
- Transcript of interview on Australian Broadcasting Company's Sunday Morning, January 2002
- Transcript of interview on Australian Broadcasting Company's The Music Show regarding Jane Eyre, May 2005
- Rogers, Coleridge & White literary agency biography on Michael Berkeley