George Benjamin was born in London in 1960. In 1974, he began studying piano with Peter Gellhorn and Yvonne Loriod, and composition with Peter Gellhorn and Olivier Messiaen. In 1977, he entered the Conservatoire de Paris, then returned to England to continue studying music at King’s College in Cambridge with Alexander Goehr (1978-1982).

In 1980, he was the youngest composer ever to have had one of his works - (Ringed by the Flat Horizon) - performed at the BBC Proms. The piece, as well as the two that preceded it, A Mind of Winter and At First Light, were recorded on the Nimbus label in 1987. That same year, in Paris, Benjamin conducted the world premiere of Antara, a commission for the IRCAM.

George Benjamin taught composition at the Royal College of Music, London, from 1985 to 2001, and was frequently invited to conduct such orchestras as the London Sinfonietta, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, and the orchestra of the Opéra de Lyon. He also served as an artistic director for the Musique Oblique Ensemble. In 1992, he curated the Wet Ink Festival, a contemporary music event, for the San Francisco Symphony.

In 1993, Benjamin curated the first Meltdown music festival in London, during which his piece Sudden Time was premiered. In 1995, he conducted the world premiere of his work Three Inventions for Chamber Orchestra for Ensemble Modern as part of the 75^th annual Salzburg Festival. He composed Palimpsest I for a London Symphony Orchestra world tour under Pierre Boulez; the London Symphony also premiered Palimpsest II in 2002, as part of a retrospective of Benjamin’s work. After Dance Figures, written for orchestra in 2004, he turned to opera, and in 2006 completed his first opera, Into the Little Hill, which was performed at the Festival d’Automne in Paris that same year and for which he received the 2008 Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize. His opera Written on Skin (2012-2013) premiered at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and has been performed many times in Europe, as well as at the Tanglewood Festival (USA). It has received numerous honors, including a South Bank Sky Arts Award, the British Composer Award, the International Opera Award, and the Grand Prix of the Académie Charles Cros. His third opera, Lessons in Love and Violence, premiered in May 2018 at the Royal Opera House in London, directed by Katie Mitchell. The libretti for all three operas were written by Martin Crimp. In 2018-2019, Benjamin was composer-in-residence with the Berliner Philharmonkier/Musikfest and the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg.

In 2001, George Benjamin received the Arnold Schœnberg composition prize from the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. Since 2001, he has taught composition at King’s College, London. He served as an artistic conusltant for the BBC retrospective Sounding the Century, a look at 20^th-century music, in 2004/2005. During the 2018-19 season Benjamin was composer-in-residence with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Musikfest and at the new Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg.

Benjamin is a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, is an elected member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, and was awarded the title “Commander of the British Empire” in 2010. In 2014, he was named composer of the year by Musical America. He was knighted at the Queen’s Birthday Honors in 2017, and was elected as a member of the Swedesh Royal Academy in 2018. In 2019, he received the Golden Lion Award for lifetime achievement from the Venice Biennale.