Judith Weir is one of Britain's most wide-ranging and prolific composers. She studied composition with John Tavener while at school in London, and at Cambridge University with Robin Holloway. For six years she taught composition at Glasgow's University and RSAMD and she has also held visiting professorships at Oxford University and Princeton University.

Her interest in theatre, narrative and folklore has resulted in three full length operas (A Night at the Chinese Opera, The Vanishing Bridegroom and Blond Eckbert — all televised, and widely performed in the UK, Germany and the USA); and collaborations with the Royal National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Peter Hall Company, working with playwrights including Caryl Churchill and Peter Shaffer. Together with storyteller Vayu Naidu, Judith has created a blend of storytelling and music entitled Future Perfect which has toured England and India.

Works composed for specific artists include woman.life.song, a 50-minute song cycle commissioned and performed by Jessye Norman in Carnegie Hall, New York and at the BBC Proms; We Are Shadows, written for Sir Simon Rattle and the CBSO orchestra and its three choruses (winner of the South Bank Show Music Award 2000); and an extended series of chamber works for Judith's longtime collaborators, the Schubert Ensemble.

Recent successes include a major orchestral work The welcome arrival of rain for the Minnesota Orchestra and the ensemble work Tiger Under the Table for the London Sinfonietta. Current projects include works for the Florestan Trio, The New York Young People's Chorus and a piece for soprano Alice Coote and pianist Julius Drake.

From 1995 to 1998 she was the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra's Composer in Association; and from 1995 to 2000 she was the Artistic Director of the Spitalfields Festival in London. She is the holder of a Critics' Circle Award (1994) a CBE (1995) and the Lincoln Center's Stoeger Prize (1997).

Judith Weir's music is published exclusively by Chester Music Ltd and Novello and Company Ltd.

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