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Michael Fitzhardinge Berkeley, Baron Berkeley of Knighton, (born 29 May 1948) is an English composer, broadcaster on music and non-party political member of the House of Lords, speaking as an advocate for the arts, contemporary music and music education.
He has written three operas. Baa Baa Black Sheep (libretto by David Malouf) is based on the childhood of Rudyard Kipling and was recorded by the Opera North Chorus and English Northern Philharmonia in 1993. Jane Eyre (2000, libretto also by David Malouf), premiered at the Cheltenham Music Festival by Music Theatre Wales and subsequently toured around the UK. The Australian premiere took place in Canberra and the American in St. Louis where it was directed by Colin Graham. The original drafts for Jane Eyre, representing one year's worth of work and the only copy of them, were stolen from outside his London home in May 1999. The chamber opera For You, with Ian McEwan the librettist, was premiered by Music Theatre Wales in the Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. A proposed opera of McEwan's novel Atonement with libretto by Craig Raine for Dortmund Opera was set for premiere in 2013, but was shelved. "We’ve had the book and film, now it’s Atonement the opera" by Ben Hoyle, The Times (London), 19 March 2010. Retrieved 19 March 2010. Subscription required.
Berkeley has written scores for films including Captive (with the Edge of U2, 1986), Goldeneye (1989) and Twenty-One (1991). He arranged the choral sequences for Hello Earth, a song written by Kate Bush which appeared on her studio album Hounds of Love in 1985.
Berkeley has written a considerable amount of chamber music for artists including Julian Bream ( Guitar Sonata, Edinburgh Festival, 1980), the Takas Quartet ( Torque and Velocity, 1997) and Nicholas Daniel with the Carducci Quartet ( Into the Ravine). The harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani premiered Berkeley's Haiku 2: Insects, composed for Esfahani, at the Snape Maltings Concert Hall in April 2023.
Berkeley has written much choral music, including the specially commissioned Listen, listen O my child for the enthronement of Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury in 2013 and the Magna Carta Te Deum, for the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta in 2015 in Lincoln Cathedral. He wrote This Endernight for the 2016 King’s College Festival of nine Lessons and Carols and Super Flumina Babylonis for the St. Cecilia Day Service in Westminster Cathedral in 2017.
In June 2024 Orchid Classics released Collaborations, a CD of Berkeley's music featuring artists he had worked closely with and written for. These included Mahan Esfahani, Clare Hammond, Madeleine Mitchell, Alice Coote, Julius Drake and the BBC Singers. The album includes a song for Ukraine, Zero Hour, with lyrics and vocals from Neil Tennant and guitar solos from David Gilmour.
Since 1995 Berkeley has presented BBC Radio 3's Private Passions, in which celebrities are invited to choose and discuss several pieces of music. In December 1997, one of his guests was a 112-year-old Viennese percussionist called Manfred Sturmer, who told anecdotes about Johannes Brahms, Clara Schumann, Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg and others so realistically that some listeners did not realise that the whole thing was a hoax perpetrated by Berkeley and John Sessions. On 30 December 2018, Charles III, when Prince of Wales, was the guest on Private Passions, in order to mark the passing of over one thousand editions of the programme, and to celebrate the prince's 70th birthday.
Berkeley was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to music. He was awarded an honorary doctor of music degree by Aberdeen University in 2022.
Berkeley is a Fellow of the Royal Northern College of Music and an honorary Doctor of Music from the University of East Anglia and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music. He is President of the Presteigne Festival of Music and is also a Vice-President of the Joyful Company of Singers.
In 2018 Michael Berkeley successfully instigated and steered through the House of Lords an Amendment to the Children Act 1989. This corrected an oversight in the law that meant that, while the Family Court could issue a Care Order for a child at risk of forced marriage or from a habitually drunk and violent father, it could not issue an Order for a child at risk of Female Genital Mutilation. The bill received unanimous backing in the House of Lords but, on reaching the House of Commons, where it was sponsored by Zac Goldsmith, it was twice objected to by Christopher Chope. This led to national outrage, and several cabinet ministers condemned Chope's actions. Subsequently, first the Home Secretary and then the Prime Minister told parliament that they would find Government time for the Bill, which finally received Royal Assent on 15 March 2019. Berkeley has consistently spoken in support of music and music education.
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