Composer Ian Venables is especially recognized for his work in the genres of art song and chamber music. Called Britain's greatest living composer of art songs by Musical Opinion, Venables has seen his work performed by many of Britain's top singers and by several beyond Britain.

Venables was born in Liverpool in 1955 and received primary education there. He attended Trinity College of Music in London, where he studied with Richard Arnell, and then went on to the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, where his teachers included John Joubert, John Mayer, and Andrew Downes. Venables settled in the city of Worcester in 1986 and has lived there ever since. His output has focused especially on art song, in which field he has composed more than 60 works, many part of his eight song cycles. A number of his songs are for something other than the conventional combination of voice and piano; the song cycle On the Wings of Love, Op. 38 (2006), for example is for tenor, clarinet, and piano. The list of performers who have programmed Venables' songs fills most of a page and includes singers from beyond the UK as well as within it; among them are Roderick Williams, Mary Bevan, and Benjamin Appl. In addition to songs, Venables has written chamber works, including the Piano Quintet, Op. 27, of 1995, and a String Quartet, Op. 32 (1998), as well as pieces for solo instrument and piano. Performers of his chamber works have included the Duke, Chilingirian, and Circadian Quartets. Venables has also written several choral works, including a Requiem, Op. 48.

Venables' music has appeared on recordings on the Signum, Somm, Regent, and Naxos labels. A distinctive feature of his career is his interest in composers of the past. He is president of the Arthur Bliss Society and chairman of the Ivor Gurney Society. In addition, Venables is an authority on the 19th century poet and critic John Addington Symonds, and has set five of his poems to music. ~ James Manheim, Rovi