PODCAST · music
Remain Composed
by William King
A podcast featuring interviews with people who write music. How do composers start new pieces? How do they take an idea and develop into a work of art? In Remain Composed, we meet people writing different kinds of music, at different stages in their careers, to find out what influences them and how their processes work.
Episodes
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David Önaç on Atlantic Requiem, slave ships, structure and improvisation and carnivals
David Önaç is a composer, pianist, director and educator. He’s on Remain Composed ahead of the premiere of his latest work for orchestra, choir and soloists. Atlantic Requiem will be performed in London on 11 October 2026. David explains the purpose of the piece, which has been commissioned by…
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Vivek Haria on rivers, collaboration, Jainism and maths
Vivek Haria is, broadly speaking, a chartered accountant by day and a composer by night. He tells Remain Composed about what overlap there is between his two fields. Vivek tells us about the new song cycle about rivers he's written for the Swaledale Festival which was premiered there recently. He...
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Anna Clyne on visual art, augmented orchestras and contemporary music programming
Anna Clyne is a GRAMMY-nominated and Ivor Novello Award-winning composer. She is one of the world's most in-demand living composers. Anna tells Remain Composed about the relationship between music and visual arts. She often paints works to alongside her pieces of music, which she says gives her...
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Cameron Biles-Lidell on nature, architecture, harps and community
Cameron Biles-Lidell is a composer based in North Wales. He tells Remain Composed he enjoys writing programme music, often based on landscapes or landmarks, and he also writes absolute music. He says he’s always thinking about evoking mood, image or feelings in his music. Discussing how he gets…
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Chloe Knibbs on female composers, humour, and performance
Chloe Knibbs is a composer currently studying for a PhD at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. In her work, she explores ways of being inspired by historical women composers. Chloe tells Remain Composed about writing her 40 minute work Prism for piano and electronics, using material by and…
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Artificial Intelligence special with Tom Collins
This episode focuses on AI, with Tom Collins, who is an associate professor of music engineering technology at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. We discuss how AI tools make music, whether they're a threat to human creatives' jobs, the ways Tom has used AI creatively in his...
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Sarah Henderson on story-telling, competitions and shopping centres
Sarah Henderson is a composer, soprano and cellist preparing to study an MA in composition at the Royal Academy of Music. Sarah tells Remain Composed about the places she takes inspiration from - ranging from the Bible to a Japanese shopping centre. Discussing process, Sarah says she enjoys the...
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Philip Stopford on psalms, accessibility, publishing and a snooker analogy
Philip Stopford is a composer and choral trainer based in Leighton Buzzard. His music has taken him from Truro to New York via Oxford, Canterbury, Belfast and Chester. He gives Remain Composed his thoughts for others looking to build a career in composition. Philip says 99% of his pieces are...
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Debbie Wiseman on TV, royalty, instrumentation and showreels
Debbie Wiseman has more than 200 film and TV credits. She’s Classic FM’s composer in residence, and last year she won the Ivor Novello Award for outstanding contribution to screen composition. Debbie tells Remain Composed about how the process for writing scores varies between projects such as…
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Matthew Warren on opera, Manx and universities
Matthew Warren is a composer and researcher. He's currently preparing for the premiere of an opera he's written in Manx Gaelic. He tells Remain Composed it's the first opera that's been written in the language. Matthew says it's been written for a string quartet, singer and dancer, to maximise…
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Precious Akindele on being real, graphical notation and her uncle's punk band
Precious Akindele is a composer, pianist and organist. She’s been studying at the BRIT School, whose alumni include Adele, Amy Winehouse and Jessie J, and will begin studying composition at Trinity Laban in September. She was featured playing her own composition on Channel 4’s The Piano. As a...
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Frederick Viner on abstract music, Ligeti, new audiences and YouTube
Frederick Viner is a composer, pianist and Youtuber based in York. He tells Remain Composed that parameters are his friends when composing, and if a commissioner hasn’t provided any, he quickly works some out for himself. Frederick describes his music as abstract, saying it’s not normally about...
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Sally Beamish on Mozart, violas, imposter syndrome and the elements
Sally Beamish has written nearly 300 works including concertos, ballets, vocal and chamber music. She says music is how she expresses her emotions. Much of her output focuses on the environment, the sea and other elements. She says that after having a miscarriage in 1994, writing a cello solo...
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Gavin Higgins on orchestral brass, opera, poetry and ballet
Gavin Higgins is a composer working with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Three Choirs Festival and many other ensembles and projects. Wind, brass and percussion are central to Gavin’s orchestral music. He says he loves the mix of colours available in orchestras now, and that some composers…
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Sophie Daniels on songs, human connection, misogyny in music and AI
Sophie Daniels is a songwriter and an associate professor of songwriting at the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance, where she founded the UK’s first higher education programmes in songwriting. Sophie explains what makes an “almost perfect song”, including the importance of craft and...
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Zygmund de Somogyi on collaboration, performance directions and quarter life crises
Zygmund de Somogyi is a composer and music journalist. Zygmund describes their music as irreverent and eclectic. They’ve written for chamber ensembles, orchestra, stage, film and much more. Much of Zygmund’s work is composed through collaboration, and is often derived from conversations with...
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An Easter message
There's no new episode of Remain Composed today. We'll be back next week. Happy Easter!
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Melanie Spanswick on composing for beginners, compiling anthologies, music education and musical titles
Melanie Spanswick is a pianist, author, teacher and composer. She’s a piano faculty member at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Eton College, and she’s a regular contributor to Pianist Magazine. She tells Remain Composed that composition is an activity she’s come to relatively recently....
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Thomas James Owen on thinking fingers, emotional connotations, Luddites and being yourself
Thomas James Owen is in the early days of his compositional career. Thomas has always been curious about how and why music can evoke emotions. Thomas says he’s learnt to not imitate other composers, but he does sometimes aim to generate the feelings he’s felt when listening to certain works.…
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Dawn Walters on Shakespeare, painting pictures, university and composing a playground.
Dawn Walters has written vocal settings of all of Shakespeare’s songs, and many of his sonnets. She explains how she discovered her love of Shakespeare - and tells us how that project started and grew. Dawn says her ideas often stem from mental pictures, which she develops by thinking about the...
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David Lowe on TV, AI, the 'skip intro' button and finding words to describe music
David Lowe has composed many of British television's most iconic theme tunes including BBC News, The One Show and Grand Designs. David tells Remain Composed about his beginnings in local radio, and how buying a polyphonic synthesizer would set him up for a career of writing music. David explains...
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Crystalla Serghiou on genre-blending, Chaka Khan, yodelling and jazz
Crystalla Serghiou composes music in both pop and classical styles, and she also works hard to fuse the genres. She explains how genre-blending is a reflection of her wide interests, all of which stimulate her. When writing pieces for the National Youth Choir, Crystalla has taken inspiration from...
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Jacob Fitzgerald on piano exams, programming, pens and provoking online comments
Jacob Fitzgerald is a composer of contemporary music. A piece Jacob wrote whilst studying music at school has been on the Trinity College London grade 8 piano syllabus. He explains how that came about, where the idea started and the response it’s had online. Jacob discusses the programming of...
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Frankie Archer on electrofolk, tragic stories, MIDI controllers and the North East
Frankie Archer is an electrofolk artist who blends traditional music with synths and electronics to create a truly distinctive sound. She says she didn’t set out to necessarily create electrofolk music at first, but to bring together her interests. Frankie explains how she comes across tunes and...
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David Lancaster on ideas, influences and being a Birtwistle fanboy
David Lancaster is a composer and associate professor of composition at York St John University. He says while he writes a wide range of music, all of his work is related and each piece is a chip off a bigger block. David constantly has a list of musical ideas queuing up, waiting to be written.…
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Sharneisha Joyner on screen music, marching bands, Trump and teacakes
Sharneisha Joyner is a composer based in North Carolina. She explains how she first got into composing for video games, and the difference between writing for games and film. She says starting with a blank sheet of paper can be frightening, but she draws inspiration from listening to a wide range...
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Paul Mealor on royalty, poetry, productivity and doing your thing
Paul Mealor is one of the world’s most performed living composers. He’s written music for many national occasions, including King Charles’ coronation. Paul explains how ‘Coronation Kyrie’ came into being, and how he marks the anniversary of the coronation each year. Much of Paul’s output is…
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Anna Appleby on creative process, alter-egos, scrambled eggs and soup
Anna Appleby is a composer and professor of composition at the Royal Northern College of Music. Explaining her creative process, Anna says music often starts in either her body or voice, or it comes from the environment around her. She explains how the music she hears contributes to her creative...
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Welcome to Remain Composed
Hello! This trailer features some of our first guests, with episodes coming your way weekly from Sunday 18th January 2026.
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
A podcast featuring interviews with people who write music. How do composers start new pieces? How do they take an idea and develop into a work of art? In Remain Composed, we meet people writing different kinds of music, at different stages in their careers, to find out what influences them and how their processes work.
HOSTED BY
William King
CATEGORIES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Remain Composed have?
Remain Composed currently has 29 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Remain Composed about?
A podcast featuring interviews with people who write music. How do composers start new pieces? How do they take an idea and develop into a work of art? In Remain Composed, we meet people writing different kinds of music, at different stages in their careers, to find out what influences them and how...
How often does Remain Composed release new episodes?
Remain Composed has 29 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Remain Composed?
You can listen to Remain Composed on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Remain Composed?
Remain Composed is created and hosted by William King.
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