Julian Grant is a composer who specializes in writing for music theatre and opera. He has had a long working relationship with Tête-à-Tête, for whom he has written four operas, ranging in scale from five minutes to an entire evening – most notably ODYSSEUS UNWOUND, a multi-media collaboration involving traditional knitters, spinners and weavers from Shetland, the conception of which was featured on BBC2’s Culture Show in 2005. He has also written for English National Opera, Almeida Opera, Mecklenburgh Opera and the Royal Opera House Garden Venture, and won the 1988 Opera Association of America’s biennial chamber opera competition, and has been nominated for an Olivier Award.
From 2002-7 he was Music Director of St. Paul’s Girls’ School, a post previously held by Gustav Holst, Vaughan-Williams and Herbert Howells. He has worked for many UK opera companies on education projects and has a diverse catalogue of challenging educational music. He has written many chamber, instrumental, orchestral and vocal works, and has arranged new performing versions of Debussy’s The Fall of the House of Usher (Banff 1987), Thea Musgrave’s Harriet Tubman, A Woman Called Moses (Norfolk Opera [USA] 1994) Beethoven’s Fidelio (Birmingham Opera/BBC4 2002) and Eugene Onegin (Scottish Opera 2003) . From 1996-2002, he lived in Hong Kong and Tokyo and was a research consultant at Hong Kong University, a producer and presenter for RTHK Radio 4’s daily program, Morning Call (Fine Arts Channel), as well as musical director of the Hong Kong Singers and guest conductor at the Hong Kong Academy of the Performing Arts.