A pioneering composer of the 20th-century, Simon Bainbridge composed works which draw inspiration from and respond to architecture, visual arts, poetry and jazz. His distinctive voice and craftsmanship earned him the coveted Grawemeyer Award as well as the 2016 British Composer Award for Inspiration.

His music has been commissioned by the BBC Proms, Aldeburgh Festival, Cheltenham Festival and performed by the London Sinfonietta, the Arditti Quartet, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Singers and the BBC Symphony Orchestra amongst many others.

Audacious in outlook yet subtle in delivery, his works often emerged out of a philosophical proposal whose solution is to be arrived at through music, experimenting with musical form along the way and often engaging with the physical space in which it is performed. While always seeking to break new ground, many of Bainbridge’s works simultaneously acknowledge the influence of musical forebears, among them Hildegard von Bingen, Gustav Mahler and Miles Davis.

Simon Bainbridge was born in London on 30th August, 1952 to John Bainbridge and Nan Bainbridge (née Knowles). Born in Australia, John moved to England in 1945 where he worked as a designer for theatre productions, exhibitions and posters. He was the creator of the famous Martell’s Mr Brandyman advert illustrations. Nan was also artistic and worked as illustrator and a copywriter.

Simon studied clarinet with Sidney Fell and composition with John Lambert at the Royal College of Music from 1969 and later with Gunther Schuller at Tanglewood. The success of Bainbridge’s Spirogyra at the 1971 Aldeburgh Festival led to String Quartet for the Yale Quartet, commissioned by André Previn for the 1972 South Bank Summer Music Festival. His Viola Concerto (1976), commissioned by Walter Trampler, was another formidable early success. Between 1976 and 1978, Bainbridge was Forman Fellow in Composition at the University of Edinburgh. Aged 25, Simon was awarded an USA-UK Bicentennial Award which offered him to opportunity to exchange places with a young American composer and earned him the chance to live, travel and work in the USA. It was during this time that his love affair for New York City started. The day after his return to the UK, his other love affair started when he met his future wife and soprano Lynda Richardson at a music concert of Stephen Montague’s music. In the early 1980s, Simon worked with the National Theatre and from 1983 to 1985, he was Composer-in-Residence at Southern Arts, a council that funds the arts in southern England.

A series of chamber and large-scale works followed during the 1980s and 90s, commissioned by the BBC, the London Sinfonietta, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and Marimolin. These included Fantasia for Double Orchestra (1983), Concertante in Moto Perpetuo (1983), Double Concerto (1990), Toccata for Orchestra (1992), the horn concerto Landscape and Memory (1995) and Three Pieces for Chamber Orchestra (1998).

Ad Ora Incerta (1994), an orchestral song cycle for mezzo-soprano and bassoon on poems by Holocaust survivor Primo Levi, made Simon Bainbridge the winner of the 1997 Grawemeyer Award. Bainbridge returned to Levi’s words in 1996 in his Four Primo Levi Settings composed for the Nash Ensemble. Both works have been recorded by NMC.

In 1999 came Chant, a re-working of Hildegard of Bingen for 12 amplified voices and orchestra. The piece was premiered in York Minster by the BBC Singers, the BBC Philharmonic and conducted by Harry Christophers. In celebration of its seventieth anniversary in 2000, the BBC Symphony Orchestra commissioned Scherzi. The piece was subsequently performed at the Last Night of the BBC Proms in 2005 and by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 2007, conducted by his friend Oliver Knussen. Voiles (2002), for solo bassoon and 12 strings, was commissioned by Radio France for soloist Pascal Gallois, and performed by him in France and the UK. Orpheus, a short setting of W. H. Auden, was premiered at the 2006 Aldeburgh Festival.

In 2007 the BBC Symphony Orchestra and David Robertson premiered Diptych, a thirty-minute work described by the composer as “a large symphony orchestra shattered, fragmented and scattered into a plethora of different instrumental groupings that gradually reassemble... into a seamless and fluid kaleidoscopic community”. The Independent referred to it as “music that fascinates by its quietly mutating colours and almost heroic restraint”.

In 2007, Bainbridge completed Music Space Reflection, a work for 28 players inspired by and intended to be performed inside buildings designed by architect Daniel Libeskind. Following its premiere at the Imperial War Museum in Manchester, the piece has been performed in Copenhagen, London and Toronto. Following that came Piano Trio for the US-based Gramercy Trio, Two Trios for the thirtieth anniversary of the Endymion Ensemble, Tenebrae, a setting of Paul Celan premiered by the Hilliard Ensemble and Arditti Quartet, Concerti Grossi for Northern Sinfonia and The Garden of Earthly Delights commissioned for the 2012 BBC Proms.

In Autumn 2015, his String Quartet No.2 was premiered a few weeks ahead of Counterpoints, a new double bass concerto for the jazz legend Eddie Gomez and Britten Sinfonia, performed as part of the London Jazz Festival.

Bainbridge was active as a conductor, particularly of contemporary music. He was also Head of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music from 1999 to 2007 and received a Professorship from the University of London in 2001. He remained on the faculty of the composition department at the Academy as Senior Professor in Composition until 2016. His students include Luke Bedford, Martin Suckling, Philip Cashian and Tansy Davies. He was Visiting Professor at the University of Louisville, Kentucky. He also taught and lectured at the Juilliard School in New York, the Royal College of Music in London, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Boston Conservatory of Music, Yale University, the New England Conservatory of Music. In 2009, he had a residency at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea.

Simon Bainbridge lived in London. He was married to English soprano and vocal coach Lynda Richardson, and father to the actress Rebecca Bainbridge. His music is published by United Music Publishing, the University of York Music Press and Novello & Co (Wise Music Classical).