Arthur Benjamin

Arthur Benjamin travelled from Australia to London in 1911 to study with Stanford at Royal College * Taught piano at Royal College in 1920s and 30s where his pupils included the young Britten * First came to prominence as composer in 1932 with Violin Concerto and comic opera The Devil Take Her * Cheltenham Festival premieres of Symphony (now recorded on CD by Marco Polo) and Viola Concerto * Dickens opera A Tale of Two Cities staged at Sadler's Wells and recently revived by BBC * Popular light music hits include Jamaican Rumba, and the Cotillon suite of English folk tunes * Works performed by leading figures of the day including Sir Thomas Beecham, Sir Malcolm Sargent, Jascha Heifetz, William Penrose, Leon Goossens and Larry Adler

Works by Arthur Benjamin include:
Romantic Fantasy (1935) for violin, viola and orchestra
Jamaican Rumba (1938) for orchestra
Symphony (1944-45)
A Tale of Two Cities (1949-50) Romantic melodrama in six scenes