His Majesty The King has made Errollyn Wallen CBE Master of the King’s Music; the first appointment to this role of his reign. The prolific composer becomes the first Black musician to hold the title.
King Charles has appointed celebrated composer, singer-songwriter, and Trinity Laban composition professor Errollyn Wallen as Master of the King’s Music. She succeeds Dame Judith Weir, the first woman to hold the role, who was chosen by Queen Elizabeth II in July 2014. In recent years, the role has a fixed term of 10 years, and is comparable to the position of Poet Laureate.
In an official statement, Errollyn Wallen 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.”
About Errollyn Wallen
Errollyn Wallen is a multi-award-winning Belize-born British composer named as one of the world’s top twenty most performed living classical composers. She has been described by The Observer newspaper as “the renaissance woman of contemporary British music” and was the first woman to receive an Ivor Novello Award for classical music.
Her prolific output includes over twenty operas and a large catalogue of orchestral, chamber and vocal works, which are performed and broadcast throughout the world. She has composed for the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games 2012, for the Queen’s Golden and Diamond Jubilees, a specially commissioned song for COP 26, a re-imagining of Jerusalem for the Last Night of the Proms 2020. BBC Radio 3 featured her music for Composer of the Week, and she has made several radio documentaries. Errollyn collaborated with artist Sonia Boyce on her installation, Feeling Her Way, for the British Pavilion at the 2022 Venice Biennale, which won the Golden Lion prize. Her acclaimed opera, Dido’s Ghost, was premiered at the Barbican in 2021, received its US première in San Francisco in November 2023, and was staged by Trinity Laban this year. Recent premieres include a Wigmore Hall debut performance of songs from The Errollyn Wallen Songbook, a violin concerto for Philippe Quint, Dances for Orchestra for Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Swedish Chamber Orchestra and Irish Chamber Orchestra, Night Thoughts, a song cycle for Dame Sarah Connolly and pianist Joseph Middleton and PARADE commissioned by Academy of St Martin in the Fields.
With Myleene Klass, Errollyn recently co-presented a three-part series, Musical Masterpieces, for SkyArts television. Errollyn Wallen’s book, Becoming a Composer was published by Faber in November 2023 and her recordings have travelled 7.84 million kilometers in space, completing 186 orbits around the Earth on NASA’s STS-115 mission.
In 2007, Errollyn was made an MBE by Charles, then the Prince of Wales and subsequently a CBE by the Princess Royal in 2021, for her services to music.
About The Master of the King’s Music
The Master of The King’s Music is an honorary appointment made by the Sovereign. It is conferred on a musician of distinction who has added to the musical life of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. The office of Master of The King’s Music was created in the reign of King Charles I and the Master served as the head of the Sovereign’s band of musicians. The tradition of a private band formed by the Sovereign ended in 1899 with the creation of a separate Queen’s Band. Since the reign of King George V, the role has carried no fixed duties and often the Master will compose pieces for special Royal occasions such as Royal Weddings, Jubilees and Coronations, should they wish to.
The first holder of the post, Nicholas Lanier (appointed in 1625), was expected to work with the Poet Laureate to produce splendid Court Odes at moments of national significance: royal births and marriages, victories won, treaties signed. He was also expected to run the monarch’s own private band. Over time these duties have dropped away and the job became more advisory, though Marches for coronations and funerals were still composed. Each new holder of the post used the freedom from any specific job description to put their own stamp on it. Masters of the King or Queen’s Music in the past 100 years have included composers Edward Elgar (who held the position from 1924 to 34), Arnold Bax (1942-53), Arthur Bliss (1953-75), Peter Maxwell Davies (2004-2014) and Judith Weir (2014-2024).