Eleanor Alberga
Composer, Performer
(b. 1949)

Following an unconventional path to eminence, Eleanor Alberga has become the  most outstanding of that group of composers, born in Jamaica, who now reside outside their native island. A formidable presence in the areas of composition, piano performance and the world of classical music at large, Alberga is, and has been for decades, a force to be reckoned with.
 
Composer
As a female composer Alberga’s mark on the world is highly significant. Notable among her recent accomplishments is a female-themed BBC commission performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Marin Alsop “Arise, Athena!” which headlined the “Last Night of the Proms” on the 12th of September 2015, the final concert of the BBC Proms, Europe’s largest music festival. The “Last Night of the Proms” is an event seen and heard by millions of viewers around the world!
 
Life and Career
Born in Kingston, Jamaica in the year 1949, Alberga began her extensive and thoroughly accomplished musical career with piano lessons at 5 years old! She moved on to study at the Jamaica School of Music during her preteen years, after it opportunely opened in close proximity to her childhood home. While a student at a convent school in Jamaica, Alberga was also a member of the famed Jamaican Folk Singers. Thereafter, her distinctive talent drew the attention of the Royal Academy of Music, and she was granted the biennial West Indian Associated Board Scholarship to pursue further piano studies as well as singing at the Royal Academy in London. Arriving in England as a student in 1970, Alberga remained there permanently.
 
Having completed her studies at the Royal Academy of Music, Alberga began working as a concert pianist. Ending her stretch of concert piano performance, Alberga went on to a variety of musical endeavours, including working as the musical director and pianist of the London Contemporary Dance Theatre, and a three-year membership with Fonton From, an African dance company. Many of these endeavours ran parallel with the work in the field of drama. In this regard, Alberga is often distinguished for her use of dramatic over and undertones, encapsulating the effervescence and electricity of the dramatic arts.

Eleanor Alberga · Alberga: Jamaican Medley

Jamaican Medley
​Date of composition: 1983
Instrumentation: Pf
Duration: 4’30
Commissioning body: Jamaican Independence Festival Committee
Premiere performance: 17/09/83: Dominion Theatre, UK
Premiere performers: Eleanor Alberga
Publisher: Eleanor Alberga

Notable Compositions
As it relates to her work as a composer, Alberga has written countless pieces including The Wild Blue Yonder (1995), Mythologies (premiered in June 2000 with Leonard Slatkin as conductor), Tiger Dream in Forest Green (2004) and Succubus Moon (2007). Her very first opera entitled Letters of a Love Betrayed premiered in October 2009 to a bevy of positive reviews.
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Alberga also performs with her husband, celebrated violin virtuoso Thomas Bowes, as the duo ‘Double Exposure’.

AfriClassical

ParmaRecordings.com: "Eleanor Alberga explores the whole gamut of the human experience in WILD BLUE YONDER"

​Album: WILD BLUE YONDER
Artist: Eleanor Alberga
Label: Navona Records
Release Date: April 23, 2021
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​​"Eleanor Alberga explores the whole gamut of the human experience in  WILD BLUE YONDER, an equally diverse and coherent set of four contemporary chamber music pieces. While written over the course of twenty-two years, these pieces burst the limits of both space and time. No-Man’s-Land Lullaby reaches back over a century to World War I; Shining Gate of Morpheus enters the realm of the mystical; Succubus Moon explores the dark sides of the  human psyche; and The Wild Blue Yonder offers a glimpse into a world that is at once alien and  wonderful. Undauntedly, positively unsettling album; perfect listening for these unsettling times and a worthy addition to the much hailed album of Alberga's three string quartets from 2019."

Release Date: April 23, 2021

Catalog #: NV6346
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Format: Physical & Digital

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Further information on Eleanor Alberga is available via the following links:

• http://eleanoralberga.com/
• http://www.classical-music.com/article/eleanor-alberga
• http://jamaica-history.weebly.com/--eleanor-alberga.html
• http://eleanoralberga.com/Originals/Originaltexts/albergaarticlemay06.pdf
• http://chevalierdesaintgeorges.homestead.com/alberga.html
• http://articles.latimes.com/1997/oct/18/entertainment/ca-43941
• http://www.musiclink.uk.net/snow-white-and-the-seven-dwarfs
• http://oboeclassics.com/~oboe3583/ambache/wAlberga.htm

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Tobi-Ann Brown