Composers’ Fund Grantee: Tom Coult
Tom Coult is a composer born in London in 1988. His playful and seductive music has been championed by many of the UK’s major orchestras and ensembles, and in 2021 he was made Composer-in-Association with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. His first opera, Violet, with text by Alice Birch, was premiered in 2022 at the Aldeburgh Festival and on tour, and was described by The Telegraph as ‘the best new British opera in years‘. It has already been staged in second and third productions in Paris and Ulm, Germany, in 2022 and 2023.
Large-scale pieces include Pleasure Garden, a concerto that violinist Daniel Pioro has performed with the BBC Philharmonic and London Philharmonic Orchestras, Beautiful Caged Thing for soprano Claire Booth and Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and St John’s Dance (premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the First Night of the 2017 BBC Proms). He has enjoyed further associations with ensembles such as Britten Sinfonia and London Sinfonietta (who premiered Spirit of the Staircase, nominated for a South Bank Sky Arts Award), and has been Composer-in-Residence at Aldeburgh Festival, Switzerland’s Musikdorf Ernen Festival, and Oxford Lieder Festival.
Orchestral disc for NMC
The Composers Fund will support the recording and release of a portrait CD of orchestral music on NMC Recordings, due for release in 2024 under their ‘Debut Disc’ series. The disc will feature four of my orchestral works, each performed by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, with conductors Martyn Brabbins, Andrew Gourlay and Elena Schwarz, and featuring my closest collaborators Anna Dennis (soprano) and Daniel Pioro (violin). It will be the first disc dedicated to my music, and will represent a significant culmination of my relationship with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra as their Composer-in-Association.