Arthur Benjamin

The Australian composer, pianist and teacher Arthur Benjamin was born in Sydney, but eventually settled in London. There he initially gained a reputation as a professor of piano at the Royal College of Music, where he taught Benjamin Britten. From the 1930s onwards, he began to make an impact with his compositions, such as his comic opera The Devil Take Her.
As an examiner for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music Benjamin travelled to the West Indies, where he discovered the tune on which he based his best known piece, Jamaican Rumba from 1938. The Jamaican government gave him a free barrel of rum a year for this composition, as thanks for putting their country on the map. Another work by Benjamin that has maintained a place in the repertoire is the Oboe Concerto, based on the keyboard sonatas of the 18th-century Italian composer Domenico Cimarosa.
Benjamin was also active as a composer of film music, and wrote soundtracks for films such as The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Above Us the Waves and Fire Down Below. However, much of this music has been lost.