In the year ahead, each will receive a paid commission and premiere with a valued partner organisation including: 12 Ensemble, Liverpool’s Ensemble 10:10, Hebrides Ensemble, The Hermes Experiment, The Marian Consort, Presteigne Festival in Wales, and Wigmore Hall Learning.

Complementing this, we will support the composers with a year-long programme of workshops and activities to help them build the professional skills, confidence and contacts they need to fulfil individual career objectives and establish further commissions and opportunities of their own. In this, we are grateful to a range of industry experts and professional composers who will be sharing their expertise.

Click on each composer’s name to visit their dedicated page on our website where you can read more about them and listen to some of their music. We particularly invite programmers and commissioners to take a closer look at their work and please be in touch with us if you would like to connect with them. Our 2025 RPS Composers are:

Amble Skuse is based in Fife. She creates unique sound works inspired by disability theory, using body sensor technology, spoken word interviews and electronics. Amble is currently pursuing a PhD around disability studies and is particularly interested in connections between the disabled body and the exterior world. She has collaborated with a wide range of artists, from an album with folk musician Alasdair Roberts and early music specialist David McGuinness, to a performance partnership with martial artist Boško Begović.

Arthur Keegan, from Coventry, attended his first classical music concert aged 16, describing it as a ‘turning point that has led me to find community, joy and work in classical music’. Now based in Burnley, Lancashire, Arthur’s music often draws on art for inspiration, and text from a wide range of sources from poetry to Twitter feeds. He enjoys a collaborative composition process, working directly with performers, and often uses compositional techniques drawn from his formative experiences writing electronic music.

Cameron Biles-Liddell writes music infused with the sounds and landscapes of Llangollen in Wales where he lives surrounded by luscious green mountains and roaring rivers. He has recently enjoyed the creative challenge of writing vocal works for the National Youth Choir, and commissions for baritone Roderick Williams and soprano Ruby Hughes. As North Wales Associate for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, he is passionate about creating opportunities for local young musicians, and produced a BBC NOW event with 42 local primary schools.

Derri Joseph Lewis has always been fascinated by music and its unique ability to tell stories, express emotions, and connect us. His work often addresses themes of belonging, hope and LGBTQIA+ identity, and his recent collaboration with the National Youth Choir was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award. As well as working with words and voices, Derri is also interested in exploring historical ideas from new perspectives, most recently working with early music ensemble Siglo de Oro.

Emily Hazrati ventured into composition through a love of writing for voice, and of narrative and text, leading her to embrace interdisciplinary art forms including opera. She is particularly fascinated with blending elements of theatre and vocality outside of their usual contexts and enjoys extending the boundaries of what we understand ‘vocal’ and ‘instrumental’ composition to mean.

Lisa Robertson is from the West Highlands of Scotland, and is particularly interested in combining influences from nature and traditional culture. She is influenced by natural sounds and local Gaelic song, and uses her compositions to examine relationships between people and the land, highlighting environmental concerns. She has recently completed commissions for the Maxwell Quartet and local children’s choir, brass players and Gaelic bands at the Loch Shiel Festival, and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

Sasha Scott is a composer, producer and violinist, who regularly plays with Chineke! Orchestra and London Contemporary Orchestra. She first found her love for composing by improvising – when she should have been practicing her violin! Since her teenage years she has loved the music of artists such as Aphex Twin, Massive Attack and Anna Meredith, inspiring her to start creating her own electronic sounds. She likes to combine her classical training with her passion for sound design, ranging from solo electronic sets to orchestral works.

Zygmund de Somogyi is a British-Filipino composer, interdisciplinary artist and writer. Growing up listening to bands like Linkin Park, Enter Shikari and The Wonder Years, Zyggy’s compositional style was formed by performing in the UK’s punk and alternative music scenes. They combine punk rock and electronic experimental influences with classical and contemporary music. Zyggy’s ethos is ‘writing music to feel seen, and to hopefully help others feel seen too.’ Since 2020, they have been artistic director and editor of PRXLUDES, promoting contemporary upcoming composers.

With this cohort, the RPS continues its historic tradition of supporting composers dating back to Mendelssohn, whose much-loved ‘Italian’ Symphony was commissioned by the Society when Mendelssohn was in his twenties. Since 2000, the RPS has supported over 100 composers in their early careers. If you are inspired by this legacy, please consider supporting our work by becoming an RPS Member. Every subscription helps us to help performers and composers at key stages in their careers, ensuring classical music continues to thrive for years to come. Find out more here.

Harriet Wybor, RPS General Manager says ‘It’s a privilege to hear music and read applications from so many talented composers each year, who dedicate their creative energies to writing music that seeks to inspire audiences and respond to current times. We are excited to be commissioning engaging new music from our 2025 Composers to be heard by audiences nationwide, and we look forward to sharing their stories over the coming year. We are so grateful to our performance partners, to all the expert voices who contribute to our programme sessions, and to RPS Members and supporters for their faith in this initiative. This year, we express particular thanks to composers Samantha Fernando, Stuart MacRae and Supriya Nagarajan for the time and care they devoted to joining us in reviewing applications.’

We care that opportunities like this are open and attainable to composers from all backgrounds. We are proud to adhere to Sound and Music's Fair Access Principles and to PRS Foundation’s KeyChange initiative to achieve 50:50 gender parity in the composers we support. We are pleased to disclose the diversity data where provided by our applicants for this programme, as follows:

29% of applicants identified as ethnically diverse (21% last year) comprising 4% Black, 17% Asian, and 8% any other ethnically diverse group.

18% of applicants identified as disabled (9% last year).

34% of applicants identified as female (27% last year) and 8% identified as non-binary, trans or genderfluid (9% last year).

Collectively, we continue to seek and encourage more candidates from diverse backgrounds to apply to our programmes. Over 120 composers apply annually for this programme, and all receive individual feedback that we hope will be useful for their further progress and applications to other initiatives. We signpost further opportunities and devote time to address what we can do to support such talents with colleagues sector-wide.

The RPS Composers programme could not happen without the support of RPS Members, PRS Foundation Talent Development Network supported by PPL, Delius Trust, Fidelio Charitable Trust, Harold Hyam Wingate Foundation, Idlewild Trust, John Ellerman Foundation, Presteigne Festival, Radcliffe Trust, Susan Bradshaw Composers' Fund, Vaughan Williams Foundation, and several anonymous donors.