Amy Bryce

Described by Radio 3 as “a very exciting young British composer” Amy is a queer artist residing in London, collaborating internationally and across genres. She has a deliberately playful approach to scores which produces music that is often strikingly visual or theatrical. Amy is also interested in the role contemporary music can have within the community, often working on devised pieces and in educational settings.

Amy has a growing reputation in the UK choral scene, with commissions from BBC Radio 3 to celebrate the BBC centenary in 2022, a 10 year anniversary commission for London Youth Choirs which premiered at the Royal Albert Hall in 2023 (subsequently performed at the Snape Maltings Festival), and a publication in Choir and Organ Magazine with the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain in 2021. Amy’s work has also been performed by the BBC singers at the Barbican’s Milton Court, which was later broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

Also finding a voice in the contemporary opera world, Amy is currently working on Plastic Bodies, a co-created ‘opera about opera’ that challenges hidden abuse in the industry. With collaborators Rosie Middleton (mezzo soprano), Sarah Parkin (soprano), Maya-Leigh Rosenwasser (performer) and Catherine Valve (filmmaker), Plastic Bodies has been performed at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Tête à Tête Festival, and in research presentations at Leeds, Southhampton, and Wolverhampton Universities. They have received fantastic reviews, including ‘five stars’ in Opera Now, and ‘astonishing’ in the Times Literary Supplement.

In 2019, Amy received an International Grant to work as Composer-in-Residence for the Stiftung Kunst und Musik für Dresden, where she spent four months curating independent projects in Dresden, Berlin and Leipzig. The subsequent commission of her opera, ‘A Kinder Society’, which was originally designed as a piece of immersive theatre, was adapted for film and premiered at the 2021 TONLAGEN Festival in Hellerau.

Amy has participated on the Royal Philharmonic Society Composers Scheme (2023), The Britten Pears Young Artists Programme (2020), The National Youth Choirs of Great Britain Composers Scheme (2020), and the London Symphony Orchestra Panufnik Composers Scheme (2016/17), where she has since received two further commissions as an Associate Artist.

In the catalogue at Composer’s Edition, Amy expects you to find two main categories of music; the first is a broadly accessible body of works for classical audiences looking to programme contemporary works. These are original works and arrangements for choirs and ensembles that are friendly towards amateurs and professionals alike, including a number of pieces specifically written for young voices. The second is a collection of pieces with more ambitious programming in mind. These include pieces with theatrical and visual considerations, or creative scoring, that sit firmly in the experimental music world. That said, depending on how you look at it, these categories start to look both different and the same. ‘As the composer, my hope is that you find a common personality in the untameable variety of things I have to offer.’