Errollyn Wallen CBE

In 2024, His Majesty The King appointed Errollyn Wallen CBE as Master of the King’s Music, the first appointment to this role under his reign. She succeeded Dame Judith Weir CBE.

Commenting on her new role, Errollyn said: ‘I am thrilled to accept this royal appointment. It will be a privilege and a great honour to serve His Majesty The King, the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. I look forward to championing music and music-making for all.”

Errollyn Wallen was born in Belize before moving to the UK at the age of two. She is a composer, pianist and singer-songwriter who studied music and composition at Goldsmiths, King’s College London and King’s College, Cambridge. Her work includes 22 operas and a range of orchestral, chamber and vocal compositions. Her recent violin concerto, composed for soloist Philippe Quint, has already received eleven performances since its première in March 2024 and a recording will be released next Spring. In summer 2024 Resonus Classics recorded a disc of her orchestral works at Abbey Road Studios in London.

Errollyn Wallen was commissioned to compose pieces to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden and Diamond Jubilees. She has also composed works for the BBC Proms and other international events including the COP26 summit and the 2012 Paralympic Games. In 2023 she was ranked among the Top 20 most performed living classical composers. She was the first black woman to have a work featured in the Proms and the first woman to receive an Ivor Novello award for Classical Music for her body of work.

Errollyn Wallen was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2007 by His Majesty The King (as Prince of Wales) and a Commander of the Order (CBE) in 2020 by the Princess Royal.

As a broadcaster, she has worked on several documentary programmes including Classical Commonwealth for Radio 3 which explored the impact of colonialism on music across the Commonwealth and which was short-listed for the Prix Europa.

Her book Becoming a Composer was published by Faber in November 2023.