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 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
Ludlow Song Young Composers 2025
Ben Pease Barton
Essex-born composer Ben Pease Barton’s work often draws on ecological and archaeological ideas, with a particular focus on the complex human forces that perpetually shape, sustain and degrade ancient natural landscapes.
He has collaborated with writers for most of his recent vocal works, such as Fall (2023), setting text by Olivia Bell and premiered by soprano Manon Ogwen Parry, violinist Kryštof Kohout and pianist William Bracken at Carnegie Hall in 2024, and HOLME (2025), featuring text by David Bottomley and premiered by mezzo-soprano Karima El Demerdasch, Guildhall Symphony Orchestra and conductor Jonathan Stockhammer at the Barbican Hall in 2025. Other ensembles and soloists with which he’s worked include EXAUDI, the Gildas Quartet, clarinettist Heather Roche, line upon line percussion, soprano Faryl Smith, and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. He studied with Julian Anderson, Cassandra Miller and Malcolm Singer at Guildhall School of Music & Drama, receiving the School’s top composition prize: the Jane Manning – Anthony Payne Award, as well as the Tracey Chadwell Memorial Prize and Marjorie & Dorothy Whyte Memorial Award. In 2023, he attended the Académie Ravel in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, France, where he was mentored by Michael Jarrell and Ramon Lazkano.
George W. Parris
George W. Parris is a London-based composer with a particular interest in choral music and theatre.
His work has been performed across the country at prestigious festivals such as JAM on the Marsh, Cheltenham Music Festival and Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival, and by a variety of ensembles including the Carice Singers, voces8, the ORA Singers and the BBC Singers. George’s compositional style combines his love for musical theatre, with influences from both the traditional and contemporary worlds of choral music to create a sound and style of composition with story-telling at its heart. George studied music at the University of Manchester and the Royal Academy of Music where he graduated in 2024 with distinction.
Gregory May
Gregory May is a 23-year-old composer, currently studying composition with Matthew Kaner at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He previously studied with Christian Mason at Cambridge University, and with David Knotts and Edmund Jolliffe at the Junior department of the Royal Academy of Music on a scholarship.
His music is colourful and often full of energy, and comes from a strong desire to write practically for various musicians and situations. Working with text has become increasingly important, whether writing vocal music, or using text as the poetic backdrop to a piece. His pieces have been played in venues including St. John’s Smith Square, King’s Place, Milton Court, and Kettle’s Yard, and by performers including Rolf Hind, Britten Sinfonia, the BBC Concert Orchestra, EXAUDI, Plus-Minus Ensemble, members of the London Symphony Orchestra, the choirs of Clare College Cambridge and Guildford Cathedral, and the Rothko Collective, and has been heard on multiple occasions on BBC Radio 3.
Roseanna Dunn
Roseanna Dunn is a composer whose work is guided by principles of post-critical feminist theory. She believes that the prioritisation of heterarchy in music creation itself can guide industry change. Roseanna engages humanistic compositional methodologies that counter hyper-individualism, and her work regularly centres the voice as a site of tension between personal autonomy, and interpersonal connection.
Roseanna completed her MPhil in Composition at Sidney Sussex College Cambridge, supported by a Vaughan Williams Postgraduate bursary, and graduated with distinction and the Arthur Bliss Composition Prize. During this time, she was also the Assistant Director of the Inter Alios Choir of Churchill College Cambridge, from where she previously graduated with first class honours. Roseanna works across the UK and beyond as a composer, with recent commissioners and collaborators including: the North Wales International Music Festival, the John Armitage Memorial Foundation, ArtSpring Berlin festival, Club Together Club, and VOCE Chamber Choir. Roseanna is also an active conductor, vocalist, and harpist, having performed for/in the BBC Proms, BBC Radio 3, St Martin in the Fields, St Mark’s Basilica, and the Canadian Parliament Buildings. Roseanna is currently the composition and post-feminisms editor on the journal Off Kilter, the musical director of Aurora Choir, and is leading the Cathedral Music Trust’s Small Sounds programme for Pimlico.
Tyler Zwink
Tyler Zwink is an American composer living in Glasgow, Scotland. He has earned his Bachelor of Music Education degree from the University of Central Oklahoma in the United States, and his Masters in Music Composition at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow where he studied with Bekah Simms, David Fennessy, and Stuart MacRae.
Zwink’s music has been performed in Spain, Mexico, Scotland, and in many regions across the United States. He has received multiple research grants to compose his 5 operas, as well as collaborated with the Inchcolm New Music Ensemble, Hebrides Ensemble, OK City Opera, Woodward Arts Theater, The Julius Quartet, Wichita Symphony Orchestra, National Library of Scotland, and the International Brazilian Opera Company. Zwink received the Grand Prize of the What IF? Call for Flute Scores and the Inchcolm New Music Ensemble Composer Competition, as well as finalist positions at the Red Jasper Composer’s Competition, the OPERA AMERICA Librettist Competition, and the Movot’s Ensemble Master Course for Young Composers in St.Petersburg. More recently, Zwink has been selected as the woodwind department’s composer in residence at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and winner of both the Creative Enterprise Development Office’s Ideas Fund and Converge Creation Fund. Zwink’s inspirations in music come from Latin dance music, Jazz, Opera, Choral music, Video Games, and more.
We would like to thank The Finzi Trust, Vaughan Williams Foundation, and Royal Birmingham Conservatoire for their support.
