Iain Bell

Iain Bell (born 1980) is an English composer whose output is predominantly of vocal works, namely opera, art song or orchestral song. Life and career Bell was born in London. His first opera, A Harlot’s Progress, to a libretto by Peter Ackroyd, premiered on 13 October 2013 at the in Vienna, conducted by Mikko Franck and directed by Jens-Daniel Herzog. The cast included Marie McLaughlin as Mother Needham and Nathan Gunn as James Dalton. The lead role of Moll Hackabout was created by German coloratura soprano Diana Damrau for whom the composer has written a great deal of music. Bell’s second opera is an adaptation of Charles Dickens’s own one-man version of his novella A Christmas Carol commissioned by Houston Grand Opera where it received its world premiere in December 2014, directed by the British actor, director and writer Simon Callow, sung by the American tenor Jay Hunter Morris. It had its UK premiere at Welsh National Opera in a new production by Polly Graham in December 2015. Bell’s third opera is an adaptation of the 1937 First World War epic poem In Parenthesis by David Jones. It was commissioned by Welsh National Opera and received its world premiere in May 2016 at the Wal