Simon Bainbridge was born in London in 1952 and studied composition at the Royal College of Music with John Lambert from 1969-72. In 1973 and 1974 he studied with Gunther Schuller at Tanglewood, and from 1976-78 he was the Forman Fellow in Composition at Edinburgh University. In 1978, Bainbridge returned to the USA on a US/UK Bicentennial Fellowship. Back in England, he worked for a time at the National Theatre, before taking up a post as composer-in-residence for Southern Arts (1983-85). In 1987 he was awarded the Gemini Fellowship by the Worshipful Company of Musicians.
The success of 'Spirogyra' at an SPNM concert in the 1971 Aldeburgh Festival led to a string quartet commission, which brought Bainbridge to the attention of foremost American violist Walter Trampler, who commissioned his 'Viola Concerto' in 1978. Large-scale pieces include 'Fantasia for Double Orchestra' (1983), the 'Double Concerto', 'Toccata for Orchestra' (1992), an orchestral song cycle for mezzo soprano, bassoon and orchestra, 'Ad Ora Incerta' (1993), and a horn concerto, 'Landscape and Memory' (1995). The majority of Bainbridge's other works are for mixed ensembles, with or without voice, and include pieces written for the London Sinfonietta, The Composers' Ensemble and Fretwork. The 'Clarinet Quintet' (1993) was written for Joy Farrall and the Kreutzer String Quartet; the 'Four Primo Levi Settings' (1996) was commissioned by the Cheltenham Festival for the Nash Ensemble with Susan Bickley; and 'Eichá', written for the 1997 Oxford Contemporary Music Festival where it was premiered in the spring of that year.
In April 1997 Simon Bainbridge was awarded the University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition for 'Ad Ora Incerta'. This powerfully moving work is a setting of poems by Primo Levi. Simon Bainbridge joins a prestigious list of past recipients including Takemitsu, Ligeti, Penderecki, Birtwistle and Adès.
Bainbridge's recent works include the 'Three Pieces for Orchestra', the 'Guitar Concerto', and 'Chant' - a re-working of a 12th century plainchant prayer, attributed to Hildegard of Bingen, for 12 amplified voices and orchestra. The BBC Symphony Orchestra commissioned Simon Bainbridge to write a new short celebratory piece, 'Scherzi', for inclusion in their 70th Anniversary Concert at the Barbican on 22 October 2000.
The London premiere of 'Chant' took place as part of the 2002 BBC Proms. To mark Simon Bainbridge's 50th birthday in August 2002, his music was featured by the Cheltenham Festival, the Endymion Ensemble and the Huddersfield Festival.
Simon Bainbridge's most recent work 'Voiles' (2002), for solo bassoon and 12 strings, was commissioned by Radio France for soloist Pascal Gallois, and performed by him in France and the UK. Works in progress include 'Diptych', a large scale orchestral piece commissioned by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and a series of pieces with the generic title 'Music Space Reflection', deisgned to be performed around the world in several buildings designed by the architect Daniel Libeskind.
Professor Simon Bainbridge is Head of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music, London. (2002)
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