Tom Coult, 22, is a London-born, Manchester-based composer whose work has been performed by ensembles including the Manchester Camerata, the Hebrides Ensemble, Trio Atem, Metapraxis Ensemble, Raise Your Voice Collective, Ansae Ensemble, the new music ensembles of Manchester and York Universities, and the University of Manchester Chamber Orchestra. He is currently Young Composer-in-Residence with the Lancashire Sinfonietta.

After an electrocution accident at six, Tom started learning the violin as a way to nurse his burnt left hand back to health. Having taught himself the guitar, he spent his teenage years playing with various bands whilst privately developing divergent obsessions with the blues and jazz of America and the counterpoint of J.S. Bach.

Arriving at the University of Manchester in 2007 to study music, Tom unlocked a passion for composition, and begun to explore the world of contemporary music – developing interests in the rhythmical operations of Stravinsky, Carter, Messiaen and Nancarrow and the textural details of Boulez, Ligeti and Xenakis. Graduating with a First Class degree, Tom has been awarded numerous University awards, including Hargreaves Fund prizes for Aesthetics and Analysis, the Proctor-Gregg Prize for Composition, the Keith Elcombe award for Best Overall Performance in Music, the Humanities Faculty Award for Distinguished Achievement and the University of Manchester Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement. He has recently completed a Masters in Composition, studying with Philip Grange and Camden Reeves, generously supported by a University of Manchester bursary.

Tom is a co-founder of the collaborative opera company Opera Viscera, and oversaw the composition of their production of ‘Narcissus & Echo’, composing two scenes and conducting performances at the Secret Garden Party festival, the Arcola Theatre‘s Grimeborn Opera Festival and at the Second Movement‘s ‘Rough For Opera‘ showcase. His compositions have earned performances at New Music North West, the RMA Postgradute Conference, FutureEverything, York Spring Festival and the RNCM, as well as recent performances in the USA and Canada. Tom is the holder of the Christopher Brooks Memorial Prize for Lancashire Sinfonietta and the 2011 Philip Bates Prize at Birmingham Conservatoire, and is currently a candidate for the Niccolò Castiglioni Prize in Milan. He has had pieces workshopped by singers for The Opera Group and by the Quatuor Danel, composed a song used in the 2008 short film ‘Is This Love?’, and written a score for a 2009 production of ‘Sinbad’ at the Camden Roundhouse.