Current Recipients
The current RPS Composition Prize winners were selected in June 2011 by composers Unsuk Chin and Luke Bedford, and bassonist and conductor Robin O’Neill.
Stef Conner
Stef Conner’s unique approach to contemporary composition and song-writing draws on a richly diverse pool of influences and experiences, which range from performing in the Mercury Music Prize-nominated folk group The Unthanks to composing classical works for Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. She studied music at the University of York, graduating with a starred first in 2005 and was awarded a scholarship to complete a master’s degree in Jazz Studies, which she later passed with distinction. Read more…
David Curington
David studied composition at masters’ level at the RNCM with Gary Carpenter whilst taking oboe lessons from Melinda Maxwell, graduating with the Soroptomist International Award for composers, and the Evelyn Rothwell Prize for oboists. He has recently been accepted onto the LPO Leverhulme Young Composers Scheme, which, after workshops led by Julian Anderson, will result in a performance in the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Read more…
Phil Dawson
A composer based in the South-East of England, Philip has had the opportunity to write music for a succession of notable ensembles including Chroma, Exaudi Vocalists and the Kreutzer Quartet along with solo artists Rolf Hind, Christopher Redgate, Mary Dullea, Darragh Morgan and Aisha Orazbayeva. Philip’s music has been performed throughout the UK and in Europe, with recent commissions featuring in the Resolutions Series at the Place Theatre, Spitalfields Festival, Live & Wired as part of Nonclassical and Brighton’s Soundwaves Festival. Read more…
Lauri Supponen
Born in 1988, Lauri Supponen has spent his life divided between Belgium, the UK and his home-country Finland. Before enrolling at the Royal College of Music in 2007 he had played both the contrabass and the oboe in various youth orchestras in Brussels, having started his instrumental studies at the ages of 6 and 12 respectively. Lauri has just finished his final year of the BMus degree at the RCM, studying with Jonathan Cole (composition) and David Theodore (oboe). Read more…
