Since the inception of the Ludlow English Song Weekend, we’ve been committed to looking forward as well as back, supporting the future of English Song and encouraging the wealth of compositional talent we have in the UK.
Past participants in our Young Composers Platform have included Michael Betteridge, Carmel Smickersgill, Lara Agar, Hugh Morris, Leoni Hughes-King, Derri Joseph Lewis, Will Harmer, Emily Pederson, Dominic Wills and Christopher Churcher.
“It really set off my love of writing songs.”
Derri Joseph Lewis
“It was particularly important as a first large project outside of an educational context for me.”
Hugh Morris
“It gave me both invaluable help for a young composer and helped build my confidence in both vocal and piano writing.”
Carmel Smickersgill
“It was not just the platform itself but all the friendships and connections I made through it, and I felt that it really shaped the course of my career as a composer.”
Christopher Churcher
In 2024, we relaunched this strand of our work as Ludlow Song Young Composers, with a focus on making the programme as accessible, inclusive and valuable to participants as possible. In September we held a free, expenses-paid workshop at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
After a competitive nationwide open call, five composers were invited to take part in a workshop led by leading song composer and teacher Professor Julian Philips, Head of Composition at Guildhall School of Music and Drama. The composers explored their settings of poetry in English for voice and piano with help from soprano Harriet Burns, baritone George Robarts and pianist Thomas Eeckhout.
Beyond the workshop, we hope that this will be the beginning of lasting creative relationships. Look out for music by three of our young composers in the 2025 festival programme!
Photography: Tyler Whiting
“The workshop was a friendly and supportive atmosphere which allowed me to feel comfortable to speak freely and discuss ideas openly…I will be recommending it to my peers.”
Charlotte Glyn-Woods
“I learnt most importantly about space, when to take time for either instrument and when flow needs to continue longer.”
Alex Papp
“The workshop helped me gain insight into how the voice works and how singers approach a song. I think the discussion around text will influence me considerably as I unpack all the aspects we discussed. It is also really useful to hear the other composers’ material and learn from each other.”
Archie John
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Ludlow Song Young Composers 2024
Archie John
Archie John is an award-winning composer and conductor from the UK. He creates music suffused with light and fragility which builds its own glistening sonic landscape. As a composer, he is drawn to themes of intimacy, exuberance, and the visual arts, often inspired by different spiritual traditions from around the world.
His music has been performed in the UK, US and Europe, in venues such as Wigmore Hall, The Courtauld, and Conway Hall. He has written for a variety of soloists and ensembles including The Riot Ensemble, The London Sinfonietta, Harriet Mackenzie, Flow Unit 3, Jessica Gillingwater, Fretwork, the Atea Wind Quintet, The COLOSSUS COLLECTIVE, Lumas Winds and Abigail Sinclair. His music has been released on October House Records, recorded for BBC Radio 3, and he studied at The Royal Academy of Music where he is currently Manson Fellow of Composition.
Alexander Papp
Alexander Papp is a 23 year old composer who holds a scholarship to study composition at the Royal Academy of Music with Phil Cashian and Rubens Askenar. His studies at the Academy are kindly supported by the Ralph Vaughan Williams Foundation and the Countess of Munster Musical Trust.
Based in London, he writes both acoustic and electro-acoustic music for the concert hall and sees his compositions as extensions from his research into other areas of life. Recent works have been influenced from the philosophy of Sigmund Freud, the Confessions of St Augustine, the medical science behind seizures and Bach’s 3rd cello suite. In the UK, his works have been performed in prestigious venues such as the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, St John’s Smith Square and the Purcell Room and he has worked with artists such as Flow Unit 3, the Carice Singers, Ensemble 10/10 and the London Chamber Orchestra. His works have also been performed internationally, mostly recently in Solsona, Catalonia with cellist Gerard Flotats Boix and in Piacenza, Italy at the Conservatorio Nicolini. He has collaborated with the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt Oder, where his orchestral music has been used as music for education projects and has just finished recording two new works for them in April 2024. From 2024, he will work closely with the Riot Ensemble as one of their Lucerne Scholars.
Vivek Haria
Vivek Haria is a British Indian composer based in London. His passion for composition was ignited during his formal studies as a singer, where he discovered a love for writing vocal music. This fascination grew during his university studies, incorporating Hindustani Classical elements from his cultural heritage into his compositions.
His repertoire now includes solo, chamber, and orchestral works. Drawing on his heritage and personal experiences, Vivek’s music blends traditional and contemporary elements to create a unique sound world. Notable highlights include a new work for Mahan Esfahani and Fenella Humphreys, premiered at the Cheltenham Composer Academy 2022. He has also collaborated with players of the London Symphony Orchestra as part of their Soundhub scheme and, most recently, written for The Marian Consort in collaboration with Choir & Organ Magazine for their New Music Series 2024. Vivek read Music at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he studied composition with Raymond Yiu and Richard Causton. He continues to be mentored by Brian Elias.
Hannah Lam
Hannah Lam is a composer and instrumentalist described as having a ‘real and distinct compositional voice’ by Bob Chilcott. Having studied composition and piano at the Junior Royal Academy of Music, Hannah is currently undertaking a joint degree in music and mathematics.
She has been awarded the ORA Young Composers 2023 winner. and has been selected for the 2024 New Music Residency Scheme which will result in a premier at the iconic Royal Albert Hall. Her compositions have premiered at prestigious events such as the Cambridge Summer Festival and the Three Choirs Festival.
Charlotte Glyn-Woods
Charlotte Glyn-Wood’s practice as a composer is people centred and focuses on generating growth, interconnectedness, and joy for her creative collaborators and visitors. Her work is characterised by devising, discussing, and collaging materials to create pieces which could never belong to her alone. She works mostly with material offered by performers, and finds herself working first as a facilitator and then a collagist. Her practice questions what it means to be a composer and her response is to diffuse that long held sole creative agency.
She has worked with a range of ensembles and performers including vocal ensemble EXAUDI, Cello Octet Amsterdam, Plus-Minus (+/-) Ensemble, violinist Mark Fewer and pianist Huw Watkins, harpist Chris Clarke, and OM Ensemble. Recent highlights include a premiere of the piece ‘HAIL’ for percussion quartet at St John’s Smith Square by Om Ensemble, as well as embarking upon a year long Composer-in-Residence programme with leisure time group CoMA London. She is a recent graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama’s Masters of Composition Programme.
We would like to thank The Finzi Trust, Vaughan Williams Foundation, and Royal Birmingham Conservatoire for their support.
