Mark-Anthony Turnage (born 10 June 1960) is a prolific English composer of serious music.

Turnage was born in Corringham, Essex. His initial musical studies were with Oliver Knussen, John Lambert, and later with Gunther Schuller. He also has been strongly influenced by jazz, in particular by the work of Miles Davis. Turnage has composed numerous orchestral and chamber works, and two widely performed operas. Greek, first performed in 1988 at the Munich Biennale, is based on Steven Berkoff's adaptation of Oedipus the King. The Silver Tassie, first performed in 2000, is based on the play by Seán O'Casey. Other works include Three Screaming Popes (after the paintings by Francis Bacon), Your Rockaby (a concerto for saxophone and orchestra), and Yet Another Set To (a concerto for trombone and orchestra, dedicated to Christian Lindberg). Blood on the Floor (1993–1996), for jazz quartet and large ensemble, contains nine sections with a shared theme of drug addiction, the section titled "Elegy for Andy" being a lament for Turnage's brother, who had died of a heroin overdose. In 1990, Turnage was appointed the first Radcliffe Composer in Association with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. In 2006, Turnage was named a co-composer-in-residence of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a position he held alongside Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov. In Autumn 2005, he was appointed the Royal College of Music's Research Fellow in Composition.

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CONSTANT LAMBERT 1905 - 1951

Leonard Constant Lambert (23 August 1905 – 21 August 1951) was a British composer and conductor. He was at the centre of a brilliant literary and intellectual circle including Michael Ayrton, Sacheverell Sitwell and Anthony Powell, and despite Powell's denial, he is often said to be the prototype of the character Hugh Moreland in Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time. His father, although born in Russia and of American heritage, identified as an Australian, and Constant was always conscious of his Australian connections, although he never visited that country. He had his pick of British pianists but he chose the Australian pianist and composer Arthur Benjamin to premiere his Piano Concerto in 1931. He formed a strong bond with the dancer Robert Helpmann on his arrival in London. And he chose the young Australian pianist Gordon Watson to play the virtuoso piano part at the premiere of his last ballet, Tiresias. As a conductor he had an instinctive appreciation of Liszt, Chabrier, Waldteufel and romantic Russian composers, and made fine recordings of some of their works. Wikipedia Bio links at amazon.com...