Composer: Stef Conner

Royal Philharmonic Society Prize-winning composer and singer Stef Conner draws on ancient poetry and traditional song in creating contemporary music infused with sounds from the distant past. She graduated with a starred first in music from the University of York in 2005, before joining the Mercury Prize-nominated folk band The Unthanks, and performing at such venues as the Barbican, Covent Garden, Glastonbury and the BBC Folk Awards. Her work has been performed by diverse ensembles including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Queens’ College Choir, the Kreutzer Quartet, the Ligeti Quartet, Juice, the Nieuw Ensemble and members of the Philharmonia Orchestra, at such venues as Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, St John’s Smith Square, York Minster and the Royal Festival Hall. She was fortunate to be the first Composer in Residence with Streetwise Opera, a charity that uses music to help homeless people make positive changes in their lives, and her debut opera premiered at Tête-à-Tête Festival in 2015. In 2014, she was named, in the ‘Music-Makers’ category, as one of the Evening Standard’s ‘1000 Most Influential Londoners’. She currently performs with The Lyre Ensemble, whose debut CD ‘The Flood’ received over a million online listens in its release year, prompting performances on BBC Radio and at various venues in the UK and abroad. She is also a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Huddersfield and conductor of two choirs.