Benjamin Britten

Born in Suffolk in 1913, Britten showed instincts for music from a young age. His father - a dentist - had means to enroll him in the Royal College of Music in London, and also paid for private tutoring in music with well-known composers of the day. Britten was just 21 years old when his acapella work A Boy Was Born premiered on a BBC broadcast to wide acclaim. Following this success, he was asked to score the BBC documentary film The King's Stamp. Between the years of 1935 and 1937, Britten went on to score as many as 40 films for the BBC.

The year 1937 was marked by two major events for Britten: the death of his mother, and the beginning of a friendship/partnership with acclaimed tenor Peter Pears. In 1939, Britten and Pears left England to pursue success in America. With Pears as his muse, Britten turned his attention to opera. His first operetta Paul Bunyan premiered in 1941. Although Bunyan was not well-loved by critics, Britten continued to compose operas, and only four years later produced Peter Grimes. Both popular with audiences and critically acclaimed, Peter Grimes launched Britten's international career, and is still widely performed today by both opera companies and orchestras. Over the next 28 years, he composed 14 more operas. Although he was strongly influenced by classical composers, Britten became known for his experimentation with atonal sound, eastern harmonies, and tuned percussion in his works - things which earned him both praise and scorn in almost equal measure. His works frequently treat on themes of the loss of innocence, and of individuals struggling against hostile societal forces, perhaps a reflection of his personal feelings as a political pacifist and homosexual living in a repressed time.

Britten returned to Britain in 1942, and continued to compose. He had struggled with illness throughout his life, and had an on-going heart condition that developed after a bout of childhood pneumonia. In 1970, while he was in the early stages of composing his final opera Death in Venice, doctors told Britten that he would need to have a valve replaced in his heart, or he would be dead within two years. After completing the opera, Britten underwent the surgery, during which he had a stroke that impeded his ability to use his right hand, ending his career as a composer. In the last years of his life, he was honored with a life peerage, becoming Baron Britten, of Aldeburgh in the County of Suffolk. He was also awarded the Order of Merit, and the Order of the Companions of Honour. He died of congestive heart failure in 1976.