Anna Clyne
Anna Clyne is a GRAMMY-nominated and Ivor Novello Award-winning composer, described by The New York Times as a “composer of uncommon gifts and unusual methods,” by NPR as “fearless,” and by The Wall Street Journal as possessing a “rare gift.” Clyne is one of today’s most in-demand composers, working internationally with leading orchestras, choreographers, filmmakers, and visual artists. She has been named as the most performed living woman composer in the world by Bachtrack.
Clyne has been commissioned and presented by the world’s most dynamic and revered arts institutions, including the Barbican, Carnegie Hall, Los Angeles Philharmonic, MoMA, Philharmonie de Paris, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, San Francisco Ballet, and the Sydney Opera House; and her music has opened such events as the Edinburgh International Festival, The Last Night of the Proms, and the New York Philharmonic’s season. The World Economic Forum commissioned Clyne’s Restless Oceans, which was premiered by an all-women orchestra, led by Marin Alsop, at the opening ceremony in Davos. The same work was also performed at the Nobel Prize awards ceremony in 2025.
Clyne often collaborates on creative projects across the music industry, including Between the Rooms, a film with choreographer Kim Brandstrup and LA Opera, as well as the Nico Project at the Manchester International Festival, a stage work about pop icon Nico’s life that featured Clyne’s reimagining of The Marble Index for orchestra and voices. Clyne has also reimagined tracks from Thievery Corporation’s The Cosmic Game for the electronica duo with orchestra, and her music has been programmed by such artists as Björk.
Clyne’s own work in the visual arts has informed several of her musical projects. Paintings by Gerhard Richter and Mark Rothko inspired ATLAS and Color Field, respectively, whilst five contemporary artworks sparked the creation of Abstractions. Woman Holding a Balance was inspired by Vermeer, with artists Jyll Bradley and David Ward creating collaborating on a film to accompany the string quartet. In January 2024, Clyne presented a three-part series for BBC Radio 3, called ‘The Art of Music with Anna Clyne’, which explores how music and art directly inspire each other.
Clyne’s Night Ferry was one of her first explorations in composing and creating visual art simultaneously; similarly, her recent composition PALETTE saw the creation of seven abstract artworks based on each movement of the work, which were exhibited as a part of the JuilliART program at The Juilliard School.
Recent projects in collaboration with the dance world have included the world premiere of choreographer Pam Tanowitz’s Secret Things set to Breathing Statues for the Royal Ballet in London and performances of DANCE by the San Francisco Ballet with choreography by Nicolas Blanc.
Clyne has composed for some of the world’s greatest artists, with collaborations including In the Gale for cello and bird song, for Yo-Yo Ma; Three Sisters for mandolin and string orchestra for Avi Avital; Weathered, a clarinet concerto for Martin Fröst; Glasslands, a saxophone concerto for Jess Gillam; Time and Tides, a violin concerto for Pekka Kuusisto; and ATLAS, a piano concerto for Jeremy Denk.
In addition, Clyne embraces innovation through new technology, developing the Augmented Orchestra (AO) with sound designer Jody Elff. This technology expands the sound-world of the orchestra through computer-controlled processes and has featured in three of her works: Wild Geese (Cabrillo Festival, 2023); The Gorgeous Nothings (BBC Proms, 2024); and PALETTE, the first Concerto for Augmented Orchestra, premiered in February 2025 with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.
Further recent premieres include This Moment for full orchestra; Quarter Days for string quartet and chamber orchestra; The Years for chorus and chamber orchestra; The Heart of Night for a cappella choir; Fractured Time for sinfonietta; Strange Loops for clarinet and string quartet; A Thousand Mornings for piano trio; Red Nines for solo piano; Orbits for choir, which won a 2025 Ivor Novello Award; and a trilogy of Beethoven-inspired works—Stride for string orchestra, Breathing Statues for string quartet, and Shorthand for solo cello and string orchestra.
Clyne as worked as Composer in Residence with orchestras across the world. These have included the BBC Philharmonic, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Symphony Orchestra of Castilla y León, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, L’Orchestre national d’Île-de-France, Philharmonia Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra. She is the founding mentor composer for the Orchestra of St. Luke’s DeGaetano Composition Institute and has served as the Director of the New York Youth Symphony’s young composers’ program, Making Score. Clyne is Trinity Laban’s Visiting Fellow in Composition and is also a Cultural Fellow at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre, a new world-class centre for the Arts and Humanities at the University of Oxford for the 2025-26 season.
Clyne’s music is represented on several labels. Her critically acclaimed 2025 album, Abstractions, showcases the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marin Alsop and was released on the Naxos label. The album features some of Clyne’s most personal music, including Within Her Arms, dedicated to Clyne’s late mother, alongside the premiere recording of Color Field.
Other portrait albums include Mythologies (2020, Avie) with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and four internationally acclaimed conductors—Marin Alsop, Sakari Oramo, Andrew Litton, and André de Ridder. Clyne’s works Prince of Clouds and Night Ferry were nominated for 2015 GRAMMY Awards, and her cello concerto, DANCE, which was recorded by soloist Inbal Segev, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and Marin Alsop, has garnered over 12 million plays on Spotify and was named among NPR Music’s ‘Favorite Songs of 2020’.
In 2024, Sony Classical released SHORTHAND, a portrait album featuring Clyne’s works Three Sisters with mandolinist Avi Avital, Prince of Clouds with Pekka Kuusisto and Colin Jacobsen, Shorthand and Shorthand REDUX with Yo-Yo Ma, and the moving orchestral work Within Her Arms, performed by acclaimed New York-based orchestra The Knights, conducted by Eric Jacobsen. Described as ‘instinctive, often cinematic in scope’ by BBC Music Magazine, whilst The Arts Fuse declared the album as ‘music that balances moments of heartrending, elegiac lyricism with gritty, acidic interruptions.’ Produced by Clyne, sound engineer Jody Elff and artistic director Eric Jacobsen, the album was Clyne’s largest collaboration with soloists to date, uniting instrumentalists from around the world to come together and create a range of music celebrating the sound-world of strings.
Clyne is the recipient of the Hindemith Prize; a Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; awards from Meet the Composer, the American Music Center, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and the Jerome Foundation; prizes from ASCAP and SEAMUS; and she was nominated for the Times Breakthrough Award. Clyne holds a Bachelor of Music degree with honours from Edinburgh University, studying with Marina Adamia, and a Master of Music degree from Manhattan School of Music, where she studied with Julia Wolfe.
Clyne is deeply committed to music education and to supporting and mentoring the next generation of composers. She has taught master classes and workshops throughout the US and internationally and was the founding mentor for the Orchestra of St Luke’s DeGaetano Composition Institute, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s New Stories program, and the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra’s Emerging Composers Program. Further education work has included serving as the Director of the New York Youth Symphony’s award-winning young composers’ program, Making Score.
Clyne’s music is published exclusively by Boosey & Hawkes. www.boosey.com/clyne
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Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes.
