Sarah Frances BeamishOBE (born 26 August 1956) is a British composer and violist. Her works include chamber, vocal, choral and orchestral music. She has also worked in the field of music, theatre, film and television, as well as composing for children and for her local community.
As a violist in the Raphael Ensemble, she recorded four discs of string sextets. However, it was as a composer that she made her mark, particularly after moving from London to Scotland. She has written a large amount of music for orchestra, including two symphonies and several concertos (for violin, viola, cello, oboe, saxophone, saxophone quartet, trumpet, percussion, flute and accordion). She has also written chamber and instrumental music, film scores, theatre music, and music for amateurs.
In September 1993, Beamish received the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for outstanding achievement in composition. In 1994 and 1995 she co-hosted the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO) composers' course in Hoy with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. From 1998 to 2002, she was composer in residence with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and the SCO, for whom she wrote four major works. Beamish won a 'Creative Scotland' Award from the Scottish Arts Council which enabled her to write her oratorio for the 2001 BBC Proms – the Knotgrass Elegy premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus with Sir Andrew Davis.
Other works include three viola concerti, five string quartets, two percussion concerti (the second of which was written for Colin Currie with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Stanford Lively Arts and the Bergen Symphony Orchestra and premiered in 2012), and works for traditional instruments, including a concerto for clàrsach and fiddle concerto premiered by Catriona Mackay and Chris Stout in 2012. In December 2010, it was announced that Beamish had been selected as one of twenty composers to participate in the New Music 20x12 project as part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. Beamish will compose a new work for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment to be premiered in 2012.[3]
In 2012, and again in 2015, she was featured as BBC Radio 3's Composer of the Week.[5] In March 2016, Beamish was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's National Academy for science and the arts.[6] Beamish was presented with the 'Award for Inspiration' at the 2018 British Composer Awards. Beamish was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2020 Birthday Honours for services to music.[7]
In 2020, Beamish composed April for Sound World’s Coronavirus Fund for Freelance Musicians, a project supporting struggling musicians during the UK's COVID-19 lockdown. Written in memory of Ellis Marsalis Jr. who had died from Covid near the beginning of the pandemic, it was included on the album Reflections alongside specially written pieces by other composers such as Gavin Bryars, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Evelyn Glennie and Nico Muhly.[8]
In 1988, she married Robert Irvine and they had two sons and a daughter. They separated in 2008. In 2019, she married Peter Thomson.[2] She has lived in Brighton, UK since 2018. She is a Quaker.[11]
Viola Concerto No. 2 'The Seafarer' (2001), commissioned by Swedish and Scottish Chamber Orchestras, premiered by Tabea Zimmermann and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra/Joseph Swensen. It was part of the quarterfinal repertoire for the 2014 Primrose International Viola Competition.
Four Songs from Hafez (2007) for tenor and piano (also version for tenor and harp). Commissioned by Leeds Lieder. First performed by Mark Padmore and Roger Vignoles, Leeds 2007.
Variation in Pictured Within (2019), variations on a theme composed one variation each by a total of 14 composers, played at the London Proms 13 August 2019 [18]
April (2020) for alto saxophone, vibraphone and piano, released on Reflections by Sound World and the Bristol Ensemble
Sonnets (2020) for two pianos (6 hands) premiere 9 October 2021, broadcast BBC Radio 3 13 October 2021 [19]
Trance (2023) for piano trio (in memory of the composer's mother), premiere Bantry 28 June 2023, broadcast BBC Radio 3 4 October 2023.[20]
^General Registrar's Office register of births 1956 Jul/Aug/Sep, Hammersmith 5C 990; Obituary of Tony Beamish by Oliver and Sally Beamish, published by Bryanston School "Archived copy"(PDF). Archived from the original on 7 January 2014. Retrieved 23 November 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link). PDF format.
