Freya Waley-Cohen

Described as ‘at once intimate and visionary’ by BBC Music Magazine, Freya Waley-Cohen’s music has been performed in the Wigmore Hall, The Royal Festival Hall, Sage Gateshead, Kings Place, The Barbican Centre, The British Film Institute, The National Portrait Gallery, and at Aldeburgh, Tanglewood, Santa Fe, Dartington, Cheltenham, St Magnus, Ryedale and Spitalfields festivals by musicians including the Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchestra of the Swan, Manson Ensemble conducted by Oliver Knussen, The Hermes Experiment, CHROMA ensemble, The Piatti, Wihan and Flux Quartets, Joanna McGregor, and the National Youth Choir of Great Britain.

Freya was Winner of a Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize in 2017. She held an Open Space Residency at Snape Maltings from 2015-2017, during which she has collaborated with architectural designers Finbarr O’Dempsey and Andrew Skulina to create Permutations, an architectural performance artwork which launched at the 2017 Aldeburgh Festival. She was 2013 Composer in Residence at Northern Chords festival, Sage Gateshead, 2013 Apprentice Composer with Orchestra of the Swan, a 2016 Composition Fellow at Tanglewood Festival, and is Associate Composer of NonClassical, NightMusic at St. David’s Hall, and Reverie Choir.

In 2017 Signum Classics released a CD of Freya’s music including Permutations and Unveil – both of which were written while on residency at Aldeburgh and for her sister Tamsin Waley-Cohen. Her works have also been released on NMC Recordings, Nimbus Records, Listenpony, Nonclassical, and McMaster Records.

She is a founding member and artistic director of Listenpony, a concert series, commissioning body and record label that programmes classical music, both new and old, alongside a variety of other genres including folk, jazz and pop, in beautiful and unusual venues.

Upcoming commissions include works for the Wigmore Hall, Knussen Chamber Orchestra for the BBC Proms at Cadogan Hall, CHROMA ensemble’s Awakening tour, the Albion Quartet for the Aldeburgh Festival, Sainte-Mere Festival and Presteigne Festival, ORA Singers for Cheltenham Festival, and the LA Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella series conducted by John Adams.

www.freyawaleycohen.com