Nicola LeFanu facts for kids

Nicola Frances LeFanu (born on April 28, 1947) is a talented British composer. This means she writes music. She has also been a teacher, a university professor, and a director of music.

Her Early Life and Education

Nicola LeFanu was born in a place called Wickham Bishops in England. Her mother, Elizabeth Maconchy, was also a famous composer. Nicola studied music at St Hilda's College, Oxford, which is a well-known university. After that, she received a special scholarship called a Harkness Fellowship to study at Harvard University in the United States. In 1972, she won the Mendelssohn Scholarship, another important award for musicians.

Her Career in Music

Nicola LeFanu has had a busy career in music. From 1975 to 1977, she was the Director of Music at St Paul's Girls' School. She then taught at King's College London for many years, from 1977 to 1995. She started as a lecturer and later became a professor. After that, she became a Professor of Music at the University of York. She was even the head of the music department there from 1994 to 2001. She stopped teaching in 2008.

In 1979, she married another composer named David Lumsdaine. Nicola earned a special degree called a Doctorate in Music from the University of London in 1988. She also has honorary doctorates from other universities, which are special awards given to people who have achieved great things. She continues to be very active in the music world as a composer, teacher, and director.

Her Musical Works

Nicola LeFanu has written about sixty different pieces of music. Her works include music for orchestras, smaller groups of instruments (called chamber groups), and voices. She has written four string quartets and six operas. Her music is published by companies like Chester Novello and Edition Peters.

Operas

Operas are plays where the story is told mostly through singing, often with an orchestra.

• Dawnpath (1977) - a smaller opera.
• The Story of Mary O'Neill (1986) - an opera made for radio.
• The Green Children (1990) - This is a children's opera! It was written with Kevin Crossley-Holland and is based on an old story about the Green children of Woolpit.
• Blood Wedding (1992) - based on a play by Federico García Lorca.
• The Wildman (1995) - another collaboration with Kevin Crossley-Holland, first performed at the Aldeburgh Foundation.
• Light Passing (2004) - This opera was very popular and received great reviews.

Orchestral Music

Orchestral music is written for a large group of musicians playing many different instruments.

• The Hidden Landscape (1973)
• Columbia Falls (1975)
• Saxophone Concerto (1989) - a concerto is a piece for a solo instrument (here, the saxophone) and an orchestra.
• Concertino for chamber orchestra (1997) - a smaller concerto for a chamber orchestra.
• Amores for solo horn and string orchestra (2003)
• Threnody (2015)
• The Crimson Bird (2016) - This piece uses words from a poem by John Fuller.

Chamber Music

Chamber music is written for a small group of instruments, usually one player per part, and is meant to be played in a smaller room or "chamber."

• Catena for eleven solo strings (2001)
• Echo and Narcissus for two pianos
• Invisible Places for clarinet and string quartet (1986)
• Moon Over The Western Ridge, Mootwingee for saxophone quartet (1985)
• Piano Trio (2003) - a piece for piano, violin, and cello.
• Sextet (1986) - a piece for six instruments.
• Songs without Words for clarinet and string trio (2005)
• Songs for Jane for soprano (a high female singing voice) and viola (2005) - This piece was written for her cousin, Jane Darwin.
• String Quartet No 1 (1988)
• String Quartet No 2 (1997)
• String Quartet No 3 (2010)
• String Quartet No 4 (2016) - first played by the Bingham String Quartet.
• String Quartet No 5 (2022)

Recordings

Many of Nicola LeFanu's pieces have been recorded so people can listen to them. In 2020, recordings of four orchestral pieces – The Crimson Bird, The Hidden Landscape, Columbia Falls, and Threnody – were released by NMC. In 2024, a collection of her chamber music was released by Gemini. This collection includes pieces like The Same Day Dawns (1974), The Moth Ghost (2020), the Sextet (1996), and the Piano Trio (2003). Gemini also recorded Invisible Places and Songs Without Words in 2017.