Nicola LeFanu

about

Nicola LeFanu was born in England in 1947, the daughter of Irish parents. Her mother was the composer Elizabeth Maconchy. As well as composing she has enjoyed teaching composition in England, America and Australia. For many years she taught at King's College, University of London, where she had a Chair in Composition. She is married to the composer David Lumsdaine and they have a son, Peter. After her studies at Oxford, she spent a year at the Royal College of Music in London, where she won a Cobbett Prize with the Oboe Quartet in 1970. In 1972, she won a Gulbenkian Dance Award to work with the Ballet Rambert; in 1973, the Mendelssohn Scholarship, and a Harkness Award which took her for a year to the USA. During these years, she wrote works to commissions for the Cheltenham, Farnborough, Aldeburgh, and Norwich Festivals, and for the 1973 Promenade Concerts. While in the USA, she wrote the song cycle The Same Day Dawns, commissioned by the Fromm Foundation and first performed by Diana Hoagland and members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra with the composer conducting. Nicola LeFanu has written music for orchestra, chamber groups, many works for voice and several operas. Her opera catalogue includes the chamber opera Dawnpath (1977), a radio opera The Story of Mary O'Neill (1986), a children's opera The Green Children (1990), (libretto by Kevin Crossley-Holland), and Blood Wedding (1992), (libretto by Debra Levy, after Lorca). Nicola LeFanu's fifth opera, The Wildman (1995)

top songs

albums

LEFANU: Catena / String Quartet No. 2 / Clarinet Concertino

Mandala 3

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The Path Above the Dunes

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The NMC Songbook

Nicola LeFanu: The Crimson Bird & Other Orchestral Works (Live)

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Britten / Saunders / Jackman: Music for Solo Oboe

Reflections

Women Write Music

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Bright Future

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Peripheral Visions: Music for Voice and Piano

Maconchy / LeFanu: Reflections

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New French Song

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