Mark-Anthony Turnage (born 10 June 1960 in Corringham, Essex) is a prolific English composer of classical music. His initial musical studies were with Oliver Knussen, John Lambert, and later with Gunther Schuller. He also has been strongly influenced by jazz, in particular by the work of Miles Davis.

Turnage has composed numerous orchestral and chamber works, and two widely performed operas. Greek, first performed in 1988 at the Munich Biennale, is based on Steven Berkoff's adaptation of Oedipus the King. The Silver Tassie, first performed in 2000, is based on the play by Seán O'Casey. Other works include Three Screaming Popes (after the paintings by Francis Bacon) and Your Rockaby, a concerto for saxophone and orchestra, and a concerto for trombone and orchestra: "Yet Another Set To", dedicated to Christian Lindberg.

In 1990, Turnage was appointed the first Radcliffe Composer in Association with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. In 2006, Turnage was named a co-composer-in-residence of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a position he held alongside Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov.

Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban(s),KC (22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist and author. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Although his political career ended in disgrace, he remained extremely influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific method during the scientific revolution.

Bacon has been called the creator of empiricism. His works established and popularised inductive methodologies for scientific inquiry, often called the Baconian method, or simply the scientific method. His demand for a planned procedure of investigating all things natural marked a new turn in the rhetorical and theoretical framework for science, much of which still surrounds conceptions of proper methodology today.

Bacon was knighted in 1603, and created both the Baron Verulam in 1618, and the Viscount St Alban in 1621; as he died without heirs both peerages became extinct upon his death. He famously died by contracting pneumonia while studying the effects of freezing on the preservation of meat.

Daniel Harding (born 31 August 1975 in Oxford) is a British conductor.

Harding studied trumpet at Chetham's School of Music and was a member of the National Youth Orchestra at age 13. At age 17, Harding assembled a group of musicians to perform Pierrot Lunaire of Arnold Schoenberg, and sent a tape of the performance to Simon Rattle in Birmingham. After listening to this tape, Rattle hired Harding as an assistant to him at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra for a year, from 1993-1994. Harding then attended the University of Cambridge, but after his first year at university, Abbado named him his assistant with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Harding first conducted the Berlin Philharmonic at age 21. At the time of his first conducting appearance at The Proms in 1996, he was then the youngest-ever conductor to appear there. Harding has stated that he has never had formal conducting lessons.

Harding has been music director of the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra (1997–2000), the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen (1999–2003) and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (since 2003). He conducted the 2005 opening night at La Scala, Milan in Idomeneo, as a substitute after the resignation of Riccardo Muti earlier in 2005. He conducted Così fan tutte at the Aix Festival in 2005 and appeared at the festival again in 2006.

Huw Watkins (born 1976) is a British composer and pianist. Born in South Wales, he studied piano and composition at Chetham's School of Music in Manchester, where he received piano lessons from Peter Lawson. He then went on to read Music at Kings College, Cambridge, where he studied composition with Robin Holloway and Alexander Goehr, and completed an MMus in composition at the Royal College of Music, where he studied with Julian Anderson. Huw Watkins was awarded the Constant and Kit Lambert Junior Fellowship at the Royal College of Music, where he is now a Professor of Composition.

In 1999, the Nash Ensemble premiered Watkins’ Sonata for Cello and Eight Instruments, which had been commissioned by Faber Music. The review in The Times declared that “at 22, Huw Watkins is already a composer to be reckoned with”. The work has since been performed by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group in London, Paris, Copenhagen and Aldeburgh under the direction of Sakari Oramo and Peter Rundel.

In 2000, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales gave the first performance of Watkins’ Sinfonietta under Grant Llewellyn, and as a result of the collaboration, a piano concerto was commissioned for the same orchestra. This was given its premiere - with Watkins at the piano - in May 2002, under Martyn Brabbins.