Nicola LeFanu


Nicola Frances LeFanu is a British composer, academic, lecturer and director.

Life

Nicola LeFanu was born in Wickham Bishops, Essex, England, to William LeFanu and Elizabeth Maconchy. She studied at St Hilda's College, Oxford, before taking up a Harkness Fellowship at Harvard. In 1972 she won the Mendelssohn Scholarship. She later became Director of Music at St Paul's Girls' School, taught at King's College London, and then a Professor of Music at the University of York where she was Head of Department from 1994 to 2001. She retired from teaching in 2008.
In 1979 she married the composer David Lumsdaine.
She earned a Doctorate in Music from the University of London in 1988 and holds honorary doctorates from the Universities of Durham and Aberdeen and from the Open University. She is active in many aspects of the musical profession, as composer, teacher and director.

Works

LeFanu has written around sixty works, including music for orchestra, chamber groups and voices, as well as six operas. These have been widely played and broadcast, and many are available on CD. Her music is published by Chester Novello and Edition Peters.
Her operas are:
Some of her recent works are: