Sally Beamish

Sally Beamish was born in London, and began writing music at an early age, but began her career as a viola player. She moved to Scotland in 1990, to concentrate on composing. Her orchestral output is considerable, and four complete discs of orchestral music have already been released on the BIS label. A collection of cello music, Bridging the Day, was released in 2001, performed by Robert Irvine with the composer, followed by string quartets in 2005, with the Emperor Quartet. Her latest string quartet, written for the Elias Quartet, Reed Stanzas, received its pre- mière at the 2011 BBC Proms, and won a Royal Philharmonic Society Award. In February 2012 Sally Beamish was BBC Radio 3 Composer of the Week. Her Spinal Chords, one of the Performing Right Society commissions for the 2012 Olympics, with text by the Times journalist Melanie Reid, toured the UK in 2014 with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the narrator Juliet Stevenson. With text by Sir Andrew Motion, Equal Voices, a joint commission from the London Symphony Orchestra and Royal Scottish National Orchestra with their choruses, was premièred at the Barbican in November 2014 and then in Scotland to commemorate the centenary of the start of the First World War. Sally Beamish is the recipient of an honorary doctorate from the University of Glasgow, a Creative Scotland Award, and the Paul Hamlyn Award. With the com- poser Alasdair Nicolson, Sally Beamish co-directs the annual St Magnus Com- posers’ Course in Orkney.