Judith Bingham

Composer

Born in Nottingham in 1952, Judith Bingham studied composition and singing at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Her composition studies with Alan Bush and Eric Fenby were later supplemented by lessons from Hans Keller. She was awarded the Principal’s prize in 1971 and, six years later, the BBC Young Composer award. Other composition prizes include the Barlow Prize for a cappella music (2004) and three British Composer Awards (two in 2004, one in 2006). She was made a Fellow of the Royal School of Church Music in 2007.

Her first commissions, in the 1970s, were from The Finchley Children’s Music Group, The King’s Singers, and Peter Pears, but she also wrote 4 pieces for the newly formed Songmaker’s Almanac, and a string of chamber works for, amongst others, the New London Consort; she was one of the first composers to write contemporary music for medieval instruments. In 1983, she joined The BBC Singers as a full time member of the chorus and toured extensively with them, singing many solo parts. She left the group at the end of 1995 to concentrate on her activities as a composer, though she continued to sing professionally for some years.

Judith has enjoyed a long association with The BBC Singers, both as a singer and as a formal Composer in Association. On first joining the group she wrote a series of choral works, many of them based on texts compiled from disparate sources as an integral part of the compositional process. Several of these were for The BBC Singers, but there were also pieces for other professional, amateur and collegiate choirs, including Salt in the Blood, written for the BBC Symphony Chorus to perform at the 1995 Proms, a Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis for King’s College, Cambridge, and diverse anthems and church works for St John’s College, Cambridge, the cathedrals of Winchester and Lichfield, and Westminster Abbey.

Judith has been involved in many education projects, with the LSO, the BBC Philharmonic, and the BBC Young Composer of the Year. Recent premieres include Les Saintes Maries de la Mer, a new piece for girl’s voices commissioned by the City of London Festival and first performed by the combined girls’ choirs of Southwark and Guildford Cathedral, in Southwark Cathedral, London.

Biographical Details

Works by Judith Bingham

Festival performances of works by Judith Bingham

Festival commissionWorld premiereLondon premiere

LFCCM 2022

LFCCM 2019

LFCCM 2018

LFCCM 2017

LFCCM 2016

LFCCM 2015

LFCCM 2014

LFCCM 2013

LFCCM 2012

LFCCM 2010

LFCCM 2009

LFCCM 2008

LFCCM 2007