Musical Training
Eleanor Alberga was born in 1949, in Kingston, Jamaica. Eleanor starting learning the piano at the age of five. Years later, she gained the only biennial West Indian Associated Board scholarship. Her earliest compositions were for the London Contemporary Dance Theatre. Eleanor has written a variety of pieces including, electronic, orchestral , choral, chamber music, and pieces for solo instruments.
Commissions
Eleanor has received many commissions for solo, chamber and orchestral music. Her piece titled Mythologies was premiered in June of 2000 with Leonard Slatkin conducting. She was invited to participate in the prestigious Composer to Composer Festival in Colorado, USA. She was also a featured composer at the Vale of Glamorgan Festival. Her violin concerto was commissioned by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and premiered with her husband Thomas Bowes as the soloist in November of 2001. Eleanor Alberga was the first composer to be commissioned for the inaugural Festival of Women in Music.
Performances by World Class Orchestras
Eleanor's music has been performed by many leading orchestras including, the London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Bournemouth Sinfonietta, London Mozart Players and the Women's Philharmonic of San Francisco. She has also had performances in countries in Australia and China. One of Eleanor's acclaimed projects was her adaptation of Roald Dahl's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. This pieces received its premiere at the Royal Festival Hall in 1994 with Franz Welser Möst and the London Philharmonic.
Double Exposure
Eleanor's husband, violinist Thomas Bowes, is a highly respected virtuoso. Their duo, Double Exposure, both performed and commissioned new works. Alberga and her husband have founded and nurtured an original festival called Arcadia. In 2001, she was awarded a NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) scholarship to develop and experiment with compositional techniques and ideas. In 2019, Eleanor received the prestigious Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for composition.