Nicola LeFanu Recordings
Nicola LeFanu was born in England in 1947, the daughter of Irish parents: her father William LeFanu was from an Irish literary family, and her mother was the composer Elizabeth Maconchy. LeFanu studied at Oxford, Royal College of Music and, as a Harkness Fellow, at Harvard. She has honorary doctorates from the universities of Durham, Aberdeen, and The Open University, is an Honorary Fellow of St Hilda’s College Oxford, and is FRCM and FTCL. She has composed around one hundred works which have been played and broadcast all over the world; her music is published by Novello and by Edition Peters. She has been commissioned by the BBC, by festivals in UK and beyond, and by leading orchestras, ensembles and soloists.
Nicola has a particular affinity for vocal music and has composed eight
operas: Dawnpath (New Opera Company, London, 1977), The Story of Mary O’Neill, a radio opera, libretto Sally McInerney, (BBC, 1987), The Green Children, a children’s opera, libretto Kevin Crossley-Holland, (King’s Lynn Festival, 1990), Blood Wedding, libretto Deborah Levy (WPT, London 1992), The Wildman, libretto Crossley-Holland, (Aldeburgh Festival, 1995), Light Passing, libretto John Edmonds, (BBC/NCEM, York,2004), Dream Hunter, libretto John Fuller (Lontano, Wales 2011, London 2012)and Tokaido Road: a Journey after Hiroshige, libretto Nancy Gaffield, (Okeanos, Cheltenham Festival, July 2014.)
She is active in many aspects of the musical profession, as composer, teacher, director and as a member of various public boards and new music organisations. From 1994 to 2008 she was Professor of Music at the University of York, where many gifted composers came to study
with her. Previously she taught composition at King’s College London; in the 1970s she directed Morley College
Music Theatre.
In April 2017 Nicola celebrated her seventieth birthday and was BBC Radio 3 ’Composer of the Week’. 2017 also saw premieres of five new works, including The Crimson Bird (commissioned by the RPS for the BBC Symphony Orchestra with Rachel Nicholls, soprano) and the cantata St Hilda of Whitby, to a text by Wendy Cope, that
was premiered in Oxford in February 2018. More recent music includes works for solo violin, solo piano, two choral works and The Swan for baritone and piano or chamber
ensemble.
In 2020 NMC released a CD of four of her major orchestral pieces, supported by a grant from the PRS Foundation. It features the RTE National Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Forthcoming projects include a new quintet for strings to be premiered by the Sacconi quartet and Triptych for baritone and chamber orchestra
(text, Rowan Williams) that will be premiered by the Welsh Chamber Orchestra.
