Distinguished Composer Errollyn Wallen MBE has had an illustrious career which is set to continue. An alumna of Goldsmiths’ College, University of London, Kings College, University of Cambridge she also teaches at The Royal College of Music, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance as well as Birmingham Conservatoire of Music.
Errollyn Wallen, born in Belize and is an internationally renowned composer and performer. Her prolific output includes seventeen operas to date and awards include the Ivor Novello Award for Classical Music and a British Composer Award.
She composed two large scale works for the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games for London 2012. She founded her own Orchestra X (whose motto is, “we don’t break down barriers in music…we don’t see any”) whose latest orchestral album, PHOTOGRAPHY, was voted Top Ten Classical Albums of 2016 by USA’s National Public Radio. Errollyn has recently returned from Ucross Foundation, Wyoming, where she was working on several new works including a new work for Royal Northern Sinfonia and BBC commission for National Orchestra of Wales and Catriona Morison, mezzo soprano (and Cardiff Singer of the World 2017) and NNENNA, a septet for Chineke! Her Concerto Grosso (recorded for release next year on the NMC label) received its US premiere in September in Los Angeles by Southeast Symphony with Errollyn as pianist and plans are underway for a new album of organ and choral works on King’s College Recordings.
Errollyn Wallen’s albums (ERROLLYN, The Girl in My Alphabet, Meet Me at Harold Moores) have travelled 7.84 million kilometres in space, completing 186 orbits around the Earth on NASA’s STS115 mission.
Errollyn was awarded the MBE in 2007 for services to music and in 2015 was inaugurated Honorary Fellow of Mansfield College, Oxford, in recognition of her distinguished contribution to scholarship in the field of British contemporary music and her exceptional achievements as a composer.