Composer/conductor GEORGE BENJAMIN has been named music director of the 64th Ojai Music Festival, scheduled for June 10-13, 2010 in Ojai, California. As a conductor Benjamin appears regularly with prominent ensembles and orchestras, and has conducted numerous world premieres. Since 2001 he has served as Henry Purcell Professor of Composition at King’s College, London. Benjamin was composer-in-residence for the 2008 Lucerne Festival, where his most recent work, the Duet for Piano and Orchestra, was premiered by Pierre-Laurent Aimard and The Cleveland Orchestra under Franz Welser-Möst. At the 2010 Ojai Festival Benjamin will conduct the Frankfurt-based Ensemble Modern in music of Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and Ligeti, as well as in the West Coast premiere of his own chamber opera, Into the Little Hill. Other repertoire scheduled for this summer includes works by his mentor Pierre Boulez; his students Saed Haddad and Steve Potter; his colleague and friend Oliver Knussen; and his teacher at the Paris Conservatoire in the 1970s, Olivier Messiaen.
Posted November 20, 2009
