10 Contemporary Female Composers
Here is an introduction to some of the British women helping to lead the charge against male-dominated concert programmes through writing truly excellent music for all sorts of occasions and settings. Check out our curated Spotify playlist highlighting some of our favourites too.
Errollyn Wallen CBE
Errollyn Wallen is a multi award-winning Belize-born British composer who is one of a growing many leading the charge for living female composers. As one of the world’s most performed living classical composers, her output includes over 20 operas and a large catalogue of orchestral, chamber and choral work. Along with publishing Becoming a Composer, Wallen was appointed Master of the King’s Music in 2024, written music for the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games 2012, for the Queen’s Golden and Diamond Jubilees and has had countless performances as part of the BBC Proms since being the first black woman to be featured in 1998. Mind-bogglingly, Wallen’s recordings have also travelled 7.84 million kilometers into space, completing 186 orbits around the Earth on NASA’s STS-115 mission.
Image credit: Martin Godwin
Dani Howard
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Dani Howard is a composer and orchestrator gaining international recognition with regular performances in Europe, the US and Asia. She has been commissioned and performed by the likes of London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra along with a Royal Philharmonic Society Award for her magnificent Trombone Concerto. In 2024, Howard was appointed Resident Artist with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain; through the residency she was commissioned to write two new works for NYO, including a large-scale orchestral work at the BBC Proms for over 260 musicians, which was broadcast on BBC Four. She has been named ‘Celebrated Composer’ of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra for the 24-25 season.
Hannah Kendall
Hannah Kendall is a British composer whose music has been widely celebrated, described as “boldly individual, exquisitely crafted” by the Seattle Times and “searingly impactful” by The New Statesman. In 2022 she was awarded the Hindemith Prize for outstanding contemporary composers and, in 2023, she received the Best Large Ensemble Composition Ivor Novello Award for shouting forever into the receiver, commissioned by Südwestrundfunk for Ensemble Modern at Donaueschinger Musiktage. shouting forever into the receiver was the title track on her debut portrait album released on NMC Recordings in June 2025. The album received five stars from BBC Music Magazine, which wrote “this collection may be her finest showcase yet.” The Wire described it as a “boldly uncompromising and revelatory programme.”
Cheryl Frances-Hoad
Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s works have garnered many awards, from the BBC Lloyds Bank Composer of the Year award when she was just 15 to more recently the RPS Composition Prize, The Mendelssohn Scholarship, and three Ivor Novello Awards. Her music has been described as "like a declaration of faith in the eternal verities of composition” (The Times) and has won several prizes including the Purcell Composition Prize, Bach Choir Carol Competition, BBC Young Composers Workshop 1996, Cambridge Composer's Competition, Birmingham Conservatoire Composition Competition and the Robert Helps Prize. Recent projects include Your servant, Elizabeth, commissioned by the BBC Proms for the 'Platinum Jubilee' which paid homage to both Queen Elizabeth II and William Byrd, composer-in-residence at Presteigne Festival 2019 and being Associate Composer at Oxford Lieder Festival from 2019-2021.
Anna Clyne
Anna Clyne is a GRAMMY-nominated and Ivor Novello Award-winning composer, described by The New York Times as a “composer of uncommon gifts and unusual methods,” by NPR as “fearless,” and by The Wall Street Journal as possessing a “rare gift.” Clyne is one of today’s most in-demand composers, working internationally with leading orchestras, choreographers, filmmakers, and visual artists. She has been named as the most performed living woman composer in the world by Bachtrack. Clyne’s music has been commissioned and presented by major institutions including the Barbican, Carnegie Hall, the Edinburgh International Festival, MoMA, the New York Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the Sydney Opera House.
Cassie Kinoshi
Cassie Kinoshi is a Mercury Prize-nominated and Ivors Academy Award-winning composer, arranger and saxophonist with a focus towards creating multi-disciplinary and genre-blending performance work across various audio-visual mediums. She writes and performs with her ten-piece ensemble, ‘seed.’ which features many of London’s top improvising musicians. Her compositional work spans contemporary dance, film and visual-art and theatre with her production credits including work with Park Avenue Armory, National Theatre, Globe Theatre and Southbank Centre. She has been commissioned by orchestras and ensembles such as London Symphony Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, BBC Philharmonic, London Contemporary Orchestra, Chineke! Orchestra, Ligeti Quartet, Manchester Camerata and initiatives such as Renaud Capuçon’s Festival Nouveaux Horizons in Aix-en-Provence, France.
Tansy Davies
Tansy Davies is a contemporary classical composer and winner of BBC Young Composers’ Competition. She has written works for the likes of London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC Scottish Orchestra and has been awarded an Ivor Novello Award in recognition of her achievements in composition. In 2019, Davies was listed as one of the UK’s most influential people by the Evening Standard’s Progress 1000 with her music being described as sleek, hot, earthy and physical. She has written for a variety of musical forces including a saxophone concerto, operas and a host of percussive works. Davies' music is informed by the worlds of the classical avant-garde, funk, experimental rock, disco, bebop, alt-pop and modernism with her scores often containing unusual directions such as 'urban, muscular', 'seedy, low slung', 'stealthy' and 'solid, grinding'.
Laura Bowler
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Laura Bowler is a composer and vocalist working across music theatre, multidisciplinary performance, concert music and opera. She has been commissioned internationally by ensembles and orchestras including BBC Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Goteborg Symfoniker, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Decoder Ensemble, Ensemble Phace, Basel Sinfonietta, Royal Opera House and lovemusic collective. Her work, Wicked Problems, won the Royal Philharmonic Chamber Composition Prize, and several of her works have been shortlisted for Ivors. Recent projects include a new 35 minute orchestral song cycle for Barbara Hannigan setting text by novel prize winning author, Han Kang. Laura is the Deputy Head of Composition at the Royal Northern College of Music.
Aileen Sweeney
Aileen Sweeney is a Scottish composer, arranger and podcaster who was featured in BBC Music Magazines ‘Rising Star’ column. Her music takes great inspiration from traditional folk music and is influenced by cosmology, nature and a plethora of different genres in music. Growing up playing the accordion, Sweeney’s music has been performed in a variety of venues including pubs and primary schools in Scotland to Wigmore Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. She has been commissioned by Huddersfield, Cheltenham and Presteigne Festivals, CBSO, Red Note Ensemble, and is part of a long line of composers selected for The Royal Philharmonic Society and Britten Sinfonia Young Composer schemes.
Roxanna Panufnik
Roxanna Panufnik is an award-winning composer who is one of the most versatile composers working today, receiving an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Works Collection. Among her most widely performed works are Westminster Mass, commissioned for Westminster Cathedral Choir, The Music Programme, an opera for Polish National Opera's millennium season and settings for solo voices and orchestra of Vikram Seth's Beastly Tales. Panufnik has a particular interest in world music and was the inaugural Associate Composer with the London Mozart Players, 2012–2015. She was awarded the Gloria Artis Merit to Culture Bronze Medal and is also a Vice-President of the Joyful Company of Singers. Panufnik was one of twelve composers asked to write a new piece for the coronation of Charles III and Camilla.
Matthew Elderton-Lewis is a composer and conductor based in Essex/London. Having studied at Royal Holloway, University of London for a Master of Music as well as a Bachelor of Music Composition from London College of Music, University of West London, he has since gone on to work with Britten Sinfonia, PoppyHarp Composer Project and score award-winning short films such as, ‘The Suicide’ (2025). Not being from a musical background, Matthew is determined to fight the ‘classical music’ stigma, offering a hand of reassurance to audiences who would otherwise be hesitant to discover new music.
