Joe Cutler is a British composer based in Birmingham, where he is also Head of Composition at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. His distinctive, energetic music draws on influences from a variety of genres, from contemporary classical to folk, as well as pop and funk. 

We want to encourage more audiences to embrace Joe’s music, which is so worth discovering, and encourage colleagues to commission and programme it.  As an RPS Featured Composer, we will share and amplify Joe’s story, his music, and his life as a composer through films, playlists and interviews. We’ll also play a part in commissioning an exciting new work from Joe this coming year.

We invite you to join us as we explore fresh ways to rouse recognition for composers and ignite opportunities for music-lovers to get to know them and their music more widely online, in concert halls nationwide, and through broadcasts. In this, we develop our tradition of commissioning composers dating back to Beethoven and Mendelssohn, and more recently Alex Paxton, Charlotte Bray, Cecilia McDowall, Daniel Kidane, Julian Anderson, Kareen Roustom, Thea Musgrave, Tom Coult and many more. Discover more about our work supporting composers at key stages in their careers here.

Joe’s music is infused with energy and imagination. His music has been performed all over the world, from the BBC Proms to Bang-on-a-Can in New York. Joe’s music is not limited to the concert hall: he’s collaborated with visual artists and wrote the incidental music for the multi award-winning National Theatre production of Charlotte Jones’ Humble Boy. He collaborated with Coull String Quartet, Fusion Table Tennis Club and artist Tom Dale for Ping!, a unique musical and sporting highlight of the 2012 London Cultural Olympiad.  

Joe was shortlisted for an RPS Award in 2023 for his Concerto Grosso, bursting with irresistible colour and dynamic textures, which brought the disabled and non-disabled professional musicians of RNS Moves and Royal Northern Sinfonia together on stage for the first time. In 2016 he was recognised by The Ivors Academy for his jazz-infused ensemble work Karembeu’s Guide to the Complete Defensive Midfielder, and received an award in 2008 for his string quartet Folk Music. He's received critical acclaim for several albums of his music released by Birmingham Record Company and NMC Recordings, including Bartlebooth and Elsewhereness which reached number 10 in the Specialist Classical Charts. 

You can discover a selection of Joe’s music, introduced by the composer himself, on our Key Works page. We invite you to take some time to explore his unique, joyous soundworld.

As an RPS Featured Composer, we will be collaborating with Joe over the coming months to share further insights into his music with you. We warmly encourage you to follow his story here and on our social media @RoyalPhilSoc. We would love to hear your impressions of Joe’s music and, if you’d like to know more about him or connect with him, please do get in touch.

We are grateful to the John Ellerman Foundation for funding which enables us to share Joe’s story with you. If you enjoy making musical discoveries, we invite you to consider becoming an RPS Member which brings you closer to music and musicians while directly helping more composers like Joe to create captivating music. It starts from just £5 a month and you can find out more about RPS Membership here. Together, we can ensure classical music thrives for years to come.