BBC Philharmonic appoints composer-in-association to write three new works

Tom Coult has been appointed composer-in-association at the BBC Philharmonic, starting this autumn with the premiere of his first commission Pleasure Garden.

Coult, who studied at Manchester University, has been commissioned to write three new works for the Salford-based BBC Philharmonic, building on a series of past commissions for the orchestra that include Sonnet Machin, premiered at Bridgewater Hall in Manchester in 2016 and Rainbow-Shooting Cloud Contraption, first broadcast last March on BBC Radio 3.

This latest appointment establishes 33-year-old Coult as one of the most distinctive and admired composers of his generation. On first hearing his work, Classical Music columnist Michael White, wrote that his music had ‘opulent but disciplined allure that promised much for the future. In fact, it made for one of those classic first encounters that feels as if one is in at the beginning of something truly significant.’

Recent works include the Southbank Award-shortlisted Spirit of the Staircase, for London Sinfonietta, and a String Quartet that was premiered by the Arditti Quartet in 2018 and later presented at Radio France’s 2020 Présences Festival, with Quatuor Diotima. His chamber opera Violet, to a text by Alice Birch, will premiere at the 2022 Aldeburgh Festival.

Coult joins a distinguished line of composers associated with the BBC Philharmonic – including Mark Simpson, H K Gruber, James MacMillan and Sir Peter Maxwell Davis. Speaking of his plans for composing following months of lockdown, he said: ‘I think of writing music as playing with toys, and the orchestra is the biggest box of toys there is. In the last year I’ve wondered whether that extravagant box of toys will ever be open to anyone again, so it’s an almost unimaginable luxury to be thinking about orchestral music for the next few years.’

Listen to the first movement of Tom Coult’s String Quartet here.