Sasha Millwood, born 1992, started writing music at the age of five years, and commenced formal composition lessons, with Clement Power, in 2004, under the auspices of the Royal College of Music Junior Department. He made his BBC Radio 3 début in 2008, with his Highly Commended entry in the BBC Proms Young Composers’ Competition. In 2010, he was a member of the National Youth Orchestra Composers’ Course, resulting in performances of his work in London, Birmingham, Gateshead, and Snape. His undergraduate education was undertaken at Girton College, University of Cambridge, where he was taught composition by Giles Swayne, whilst pursuing his interests in counterpoint — a recurrent trait in his compositional output — through the study, with Dr Martin Ennis, of fugue, attaining the highest mark for the four-hour fugue paper in 2013.
Having graduated from Cambridge with upper-second-class honours, Millwood is currently enrolled on the Guildhall Artist Programme, studying with Laurence Crane, supported by the David Luck Award, the RVW Trust, and the Billericay Educational Trust.
Introverted both as a composer and as a person, Millwood maintains a vast array of academic interests and specialisms, from practical studies, with Dr David Dolan, in Classical improvisation to an obsession with quantitative methods (including dodecaphony, isorhythm, set‑class theory, and Golden ratios) of (pre‐)composition. He recently completed a dissertation, supervised by Dr Claire Taylor-Jay, on Schoenberg’s Phantasy, op. 47.
Besides a busy schedule of composing and transcribing, Millwood is in frequent demand as a professional pianist, teacher, and music typesetter.