Arthur Benjamin

Born in Sydney in 1893, Arthur Benjamin grew up in Brisbane. He travelled to Britain in 1911 on a scholarship to the Royal College of Music, studying with Charles Villiers Stanford until the outbreak of World War I in 1914. He enlisted in the infantry, later transferred to the air force as a gunner with the Royal Flying Corps, was shot down over Germany in July 1918, and spent the rest of the war writing music as a prisoner.

At the war’s end he returned to Australia at Henri Verbrugghen’s invitation as Professor of Pianoforte at the NSW State Conservatorium of Music. He stayed only two years, returning to England in 1921 to concentrate on performance. After four years of intensive practice he made his first London concert appearance with Sir Henry Wood in 1925. He was composing too, and in 1924 won the Carnegie Award for his Pastoral Fantasy for string quartet.

He joined the Royal College of Music in 1926; his piano students included Benjamin Britten, Peggy Glanville-Hicks and Miriam Hyde. In 1938 he resigned and moved to Vancouver, conducting the new Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Symphony Orchestra from 1941 and lecturing at Reed College, Portland, Oregon, in 1944–45. Back in Britain he resumed at the RCM until 1953.

Prizes included the British Arts Council Prize (1951), the Festival of Britain Opera Competition Prize (1953) and the Cobbett Medal (1960). Beside the famous Jamaican Rumba (1938) he wrote operas, orchestral works, a harmonica concerto premiered by Larry Adler, and vocal and chamber music.