Errollyn Wallen CBE is a multi-award-winning Belize-born British composer named as one of the world’s top twenty most performed living classical composers.
Her output includes twenty-two operas and a large catalogue of orchestral, chamber and vocal works, which are regularly performed and broadcast throughout the world. She composed works for the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games in 2012, for Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden and Diamond Jubilees, a re-imagining of ‘Jerusalem’ for the Last Night of the Proms in 2020, and The Elements for the First Night of the Proms in 2025. Errollyn is currently working on a new opera which will premiere at Aldeburgh in 2026. Recent premieres include a violin concerto for Philippe Quint, Parade for Academy of Saint Martin in the Fields and Way of My Dreaming Heart for the Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey and a Latin setting of the Magnificat for the 500th anniversary of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. Two albums of her acclaimed orchestral works (the Violin Concerto on Philippe Quint’s Milestones and Errollyn Wallen: Orchestral Works are released in 2025 on the PENTATONE and Resonus labels.
Errollyn Wallen’s book, Becoming a Composer, published by Faber in 2023, has been translated into Spanish. The paperback is published in August 2025.
Errollyn was awarded an MBE in 2007, was made a CBE in 2020 and was appointed Master of The King’s Music by His Majesty The King in 2024. She was awarded Fellowship of the Ivors Academy, Honorary Membership of Royal Academy of Music, a British Composer Award and a FIPA D’Or for Best Music for a Television Series. Errollyn is an Honorary Fellow or Doctor of several universities, most recently Glasgow University and Girton College, Cambridge and in June 2025 was awarded Alumna of the Year of King’s College, London. In 2025 Errollyn was named BBC Classical Music Magazine’s Personality of the Year.