Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music

Sir Lennox Berkeley (1903-1989)

Bio

Berkeley was born near Oxford and studied at Merton College. He met Ravel and went to Paris, studying there with Nadia Boulanger. He was friends with Poulenc, Stravinsky, Milhaud, Honegger, and Roussel among other notables. He worked for the BBC, was the President of the Performing Rights Society, was awarded CBE, and knighted. He had an immense influence on a generation of composers included men we've listened to already such as Richard Rodney Bennett and David Bedford. He earned a litany of honors and awards including the Collard Fellowship, the Cobbett Medal, the Ordre de Merite Cultural from Monaco, the Composer of the Year from the Composers' Guild, and the Papal Knighthood of St Gregory. He was also the President of the Cheltenham Festival and a member of the Royal Academy in Belgium.