A distinctive theatrical talent" - Stainer & Bell
"One of the UK’s bright, emerging choral composers" - Boosey & Hawkes
"...full of energy, snap and sparkle" - Sir James Macmillan
I’m Rhiannon Randle, a UK-based composer, performer, teacher, researcher, editor of music and prose, storyteller, craft-lover, and history nerd, with an unstoppable enthusiasm for exploring human traditions, past and present, through the medium of music.
What fuels me the most is creating new from old - especially exploring the past through a lens of the present, and how traditional music can inform and influence art music. I seek to discover new ways to reimagine traditions of all kinds. The diversity of my collaborations as a composer, performer and researcher are a testament to my passion for combining contemporary Western art music structures with unusual, ancient and traditional instruments and musical materials.
Equally at home in a classical concert hall, a reconstructed Iron Age roundhouse, or a traditional music session in a pub, my creative work combines an intimate awareness of diverse musical traditions with an original, contemporary twist that has won praise from Sir James MacMillan for its ‘breadth of expression and boldness of communication’.
My choral music is published and represented by Stainer & Bell and Boosey & Hawkes and is regularly performed by the choirs of York Minster, St. Michael’s Cornhill in the City of London and Cambridge College Chapel Choirs, as well as by choirs across America and Europe.
I have been commissioned for BBC Radio 3’s International Women’s Day celebrations, and my choral music has been broadcast live on Radio 3, performed by the BBC Singers and Owain Park.
I have commercial recordings released on Berlin Classics with The Zurich Chamber Singers.
I have held Composer-in-residence positions with The Choir of St. Michael’s, Cornhill and the Cambridge Graduate Orchestra.
I have written three chamber operas, the latter in association with The Royal Opera House.
I have developed pieces in close collaboration with artists, ensembles and choirs such as Dame Sarah Connolly, Britten Sinfonia, The Heath Quartet, The Belinfante Quartet, The Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge and The St. Endellion Festival Orchestra.
I have been commissioned by the ACE-funded Theorbo Today project and Psappha’s "Composing for" scheme.
Among more ‘usual’ combinations, I have also composed for ancient, unusual and non-Western instruments such as the erhu, the guzheng, the theorbo and the Renaissance lute.
My forthcoming Artist-in-Residency with Butser Ancient Farm leads me down an exciting new avenue of exploring the artistic and creative reconstruction of early Medieval Scandinavian skaldic song with lyre. This project is the springboard for my ongoing academic practice-based research into creative approaches to realising lost, ancient musical traditions through composition.
I trained as a classical violinist with Felicity Lipman and Margaret Faultless as a Cambridge University Instrumental Award Holder and have decades of experience as a principal orchestral player and chamber musician. I trained as a traditional Irish fiddler with Kevin Glackin. My classical violin playing centres on Baroque and early 20th Century British music, while my fiddle playing carries strong influence from the Donegal tradition. I also play the Welsh lever harp and a reconstructed Kravik lyre.
As a classical choral soprano, I trained with the Choir of Trinity College Cambridge under Stephen Layton and as a choral scholar with the Choir of Girton College, Cambridge under Nicholas Mulroy. I combine my wealth of choral singing experience with traditional song performance from British Isles, Scandinavia and further afield.
I achieved my BA (Hons) in Music (2014) and MPhil in Composition (2015) from Girton College, University of Cambridge, studying composition with Richard Causton and Jeremy Thurlow, and my MA in Opera Making and Writing (2016 - awarded with Distinction) from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, studying with Julian Anderson and Julian Philips. My first-class undergraduate and MPhil dissertations on the operas of Benjamin Britten are housed in the Britten-Pears Foundation Archive at the Red House, Aldeburgh. Now, I teach undergraduates at Cambridge University and in the Academic Studies Department at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. I also hold teaching positions with Guildhall Young Artists, Junior Guildhall, and am widely in demand as a private tutor for composition, orchestration, theory and creative mentorship, and as an inspirational workshop lead for young, aspiring composers and performers.