Quick Facts
Biography
Eleanor Alberga (born 1949) is a Jamaican contemporary music composer.
Life
Eleanor Alberga was born in Kingston, Jamaica. She decided at the age of five to be a concert pianist and began composing short pieces. She studied music at Jamaica School of Music and in 1970 she won the biennial West Indian Associated Board Scholarship which allowed her to study at the Royal Academy of Music in London. After completing her studies, she performed as a concert pianist. In 2001 she ended her career as concert pianist to concentrate full-time on composition and was awarded a NESTA Fellowship.
Alberga works as a guest lecturer at the Royal Academy of Music in London. She has been pianist and Music Director for the London Contemporary Dance Theatre and a member of the Jamaican Folk Singers and an African dance company. Her music has been performed by the Royal Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic, Bournemouth Sinfonietta, London Mozart Players and The Women's Philharmonic of San Francisco, and in countries including Australia, South America, Canada, Europe and China.
She married violinist Thomas Bowes in 1992 and performs with him in a duo called Double Exposure.
Works
Selected works include:
Opera:
- Letters of a Love Betrayed
Orchestra:
- Roald Dahl's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"
- Violin Concerto (dedicated to Thomas Bowes)
- Mythologies
Chamber Orchestra:
- Sun Warrior
- Chamber ensemble version of Roald Dahl's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"
Chamber Music/Ensemble:
- Nightscape (The Horniman Serenade)
- Animal Banter
- Dancing with the Shadow
- String Quartet No. 1
- String Quartet No. 2
- Glinting Glancing Shards
- Remember
- Clouds
- On a Bat's Back I do Fly
- Suite from Dancing with the Shadow
- String Quartet No. 3
Solos/Duos:
- Resolution
- Duo from Dancing with the Shadow
- The Wild Blue Yonder
- No-Man's Land Lullaby
Piano Solos:
- Jamaican Medley
- Ice Flow
- Only a Wish Away
- Fizz
- If The Silver Bird Could Speak
Piano, 2 to 6 players:
- 3-Day Mix
- Two-Piano Suite
- Hill & Gully Ride
- Chasm
Vocal: Chamber Pieces
- Her Lament: One Cezanne Apple
Vocal: Choral
- De Profundis
- My Heart Danceth