Errollyn Wallen: Becoming a Composer

Trailblazing and genre-defying, Errollyn Wallen CBE is a leading international composer and singer-songwriter, equally at home in classical music, jazz and pop. Named one of the world’s top twenty most performed living classical composers, she joins us to discuss her remarkable life and creative journey, as captured in her powerful book Becoming a Composer. Part memoir, the book offers a compelling glimpse into the mind and motivation of a composer. It reflects on her sometimes troubled childhood and experiences growing up as a black composer in the UK, interwoven with diary entries, essays and reflections that shed light on how a composer sees and hears the world. Errollyn was awarded an MBE in 2007, a CBE in 2020, and appointed Master of The King’s Music in 2024. She is the 28th Fellow of the Ivors Academy, a recipient of a British Composer Award and a FIPA D’Or, and was named BBC Classical Music Magazine’s Personality of the Year in 2025. 

Chaired by D James Ross and co-presented with Music Nairn.