Errollyn Wallen Essentials

A composer-pianist whose work resists easy categorization, Errollyn Wallen is known for a creative musical voice that is both distinctively individual and notable for its listener-friendly appeal. Born in Belize in 1958, Wallen was two years old when her family moved to London, and was brought up by an aunt and a music-loving uncle who arranged for her to take her first piano lessons. Wallen at first pursued a career in modern dance, and for two years from 1976, she trained at New York’s Dance Theatre of Harlem. Moving back to England, she studied composition in London and at King’s College, Cambridge. The modernist idiom of her earlier works has since become one element in the wide range of styles and technical resources deployed in her music, which also takes in popular songwriting (as in her ongoing project The Errollyn Wallen Songbook) and aspects of minimalism. Wallen’s breakthrough success was her virtuosic and spectacular Percussion Concerto, first performed in the final of the 1994 BBC Young Musician competition, and in 1998 the first work by a Black female composer to be heard at the BBC Promenade Concerts. A recent major statement is Mighty River (2017) for orchestra, marking the bicentenary of the abolition of England’s Slave Trade Act. Wallen’s strong and nonpartisan support for composers and musicians from varied artistic and ethnic backgrounds is reflected across her work as a musician, including the wide-ranging approach to concert programming of Ensemble X, the chamber group she cofounded.