George Fenton joins roster of new professors and academic staff
Thursday 12 October 2017
The Royal College of Music is delighted to welcome BAFTA award winning composer George Fenton as Visiting Professor in Composition for Screen.
George is best known for his film and television scores, including The History Boys, Groundhog Day and the BBC’s Planet Earth series. He has been Oscar nominated four times, including for his 1983 collaboration with Ravi Shankar for Richard Attenborough’s biopic Gandhi. As well as developing long-standing relationships with foremost scriptwriters and filmmakers, George has composed for several Royal Shakespeare Company productions and was a founding member of the British Academy of Composers & Songwriters.
Vasco Hexel, Area Leader in Composition for Screen, comments, ‘George Fenton is one of the most prominent and successful screen composers of his generation, creator of some of the best-loved film and television scores in the last decades. He is also a gifted and generous teacher. I am delighted that he is joining the RCM Composition Faculty.’
Also joining the College this year is acclaimed tenor and alumnus Ben Johnson as a vocal professor. In recent years Ben has won prizes at prestigious competitions including BBC Cardiff Singer of the World and the Kathleen Ferrier Awards. In our Vocal and Opera Faculty we also welcome Audrey Hyland as our new Deputy Head of Vocal and Opera. Audrey currently coaches on the Royal Opera House’s Jette Parker Young Artists Programme, and as an accompanist she has performed across the world.
The Research faculty gains musicologist and violinist Dr Maiko Kawabata as a lecturer in music and Dr Trevor Herbert, a former foundation scholar of the College, as a research fellow. Dr Neta Spiro joins the RCM's Centre for Performance Science as a research fellow in early November.
In addition we have been joined by new viola professors – Belgian violist Nathan Braude has performed in many of the world’s most prestigious concert venues including Wigmore Hall and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, while Antonello Farulli is one of the most active Italian violists both in the concert and teaching fields. Andrew Dewar has become a new organ professor, and alumnus Christopher Green has been appointed a Composition for Screen professor.
