Four new composers appointed to LSO Soundhub

Based at LSO St Luke’s, LSO Soundhub provides a flexible environment where composers can explore, collaborate and experiment, with access to vital resources, support from industry professionals and LSO members and staff. It is a composer-led resource, responding directly to the needs of those using it: a supportive framework for artists to try out new ideas, develop existing work and benefit from peer-to-peer networking and support.

These four Soundhub members will each undertake an initial project at LSO St Luke’s either with a small group of LSO players, or an independent project for which space and other resources are provided.

John Aulich is a British composer whose works are performed internationally, including in the United Kingdom, United States, Israel, Thailand, Australia and Italy, by world-renowned performers such as ELISION Ensemble and International Contemporary Ensemble. His work has been performed at MATA Festival, CEME and June in Buffalo. John’s work is characterised by evocative, highly-charged and volatile sound-worlds stemming from the physicality of performance, and often inspired by surrealist art and literature, science fiction and ancient mythology. His oeuvre as a whole takes as its first principle the idea that composing, performing and listening is a lived, embodied and physical experience. A particular focus of his latest work is abject, disgusting and surreal soundworlds, conveyed in part through a contortion of the listener’s sense of space and perspective through orchestration and electronics.

> Follow John on Facebook and Twitter
> Listen to John’s Green, or Beautiful in Green, performed by ELISION Ensemble

Liam Thomas Dougherty (b 1996) is a London-based composer and sound artist from the United States. His work exists in the space between electroacoustic concert music and conceptual audio-visual installations. His music is concerned with the materiality of sound, and often employs extreme durations that re-contextualise instrumental design, audio feedback and noise, and found-sounds. Recent projects include: a short opera for mixed chamber ensemble and tape on the life of the Austrian painter Richard Gerstl and his relationship to the Schönberg family; and a series of installations for a deconstructed upright piano and feedback. Liam was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. He completed his Bachelor’s degree in Art History and Music at the University of Michigan, and he is currently completing his Master’s degree in composition at the Royal College of Music in London where he studies with Jonathan Cole and Catherine Kontz as a John Astor Fund Scholar

> Listen to Liam’s piece when your house is on fire, you don’t read poetry, and you don’t sing a folk song

Tonia Ko has collaborated with leading soloists and ensembles across a variety of media, from acoustic concert pieces to improvisations and site-specific installations. Recipient of a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship, Tonia has received grants and awards from PRS Foundation, Barlow Endowment, Chamber Music America, American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as residencies at MacDowell and Copland House. She served as 2015–17 Composer in Residence for Young Concert Artists. Most recently, she received a 2021 Koussevitzky Commission for Breath, Contained III, a concerto for amplified bubble wrap and chamber orchestra. Born in Hong Kong and raised in Honolulu, Hawai‘i, Ko earned a DMA. from Cornell University. Her practice was enriched by further studies at Tanglewood Music Center and Royaumont Académie Voix Nouvelles. She was the 2018/19 Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Chicago and was appointed Lecturer in Composition at Royal Holloway in 2020.

> Follow Tonia on Twitter and Instagram
> Listen to Tonia’s piece Farewell Dwelling for flute, yangqin, percussion, piano

Kate Milligan is an Australian composer and researcher based in London. Kate’s work brings design thinking to music. She researches living systems and natural phenomena for their capacity to inform composition and sound art, with reference to the existential threat of climate change. Her work often includes elements of graphic and animated notation. Kate has written for electroacoustic ensembles across Australia, and has been commissioned by the Australian National Academy of Music, Tura New Music and the Perth Orchestra Project, amongst others. In 2022, she is a finalist in the APRA AMCOS Professional Development Awards for the Classical/Experimental category. Kate is currently completing an MA at the Royal College of Art in Information Experience Design. This study is generously supported by the Schenberg Music Fellowship and the Ian Potter Cultural Trust. She holds a MMus (Musicology) and a BA(Hons) (Composition) from the University of Western Australia.

> Follow Kate on Facebook and Instagram
> Listen to Kate’s piece LUX LEVIS