Mark Simpson returns to Liverpool as Artist in Residence
The coming season sees composer and clarinettist Mark Simpson return to his home city for his Artist in Residence role with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. The five-concert series is launched on 25 September with the UK premiere of his viola concerto featuring Timothy Ridout.
Mark Simpson is the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s Artist in Residence throughout the 2025/26 season, seeing the composer travel back to the city where he was born in 1988, grew up and gained his formative musical experiences. Highlights include the first UK performance of his recent viola concerto for Timothy Ridout, Hold Your Heart in Your Teeth, and his powerful oratorio The Immortal, exploring the eerie world of Victorian seances.
Five concerts across the season either spotlight Simpson’s music or feature him performing as clarinet soloist. In addition, he will lead a series of outreach projects in January 2026, including workshops as part of the RLPO Learning Creative Residencies as well as composition and careers sessions with secondary school students.
Commenting on the Liverpool residency, Mark Simpson said: “It really is such a huge honour and with an immense sense of pride that I return to my home orchestra, where my passion for classical music began, to be featured in this way.”
In a recent Guardian interview Simpson noted how“growing up in Liverpool in the late 90s, early 2000s, the classical music infrastructure was phenomenal. In my primary school I had a very enthusiastic headteacher who made us all play recorder, and then she would play classical music in the assemblies. We had a music teacher come in, who was paid for by the local council, and kids got the opportunity to play the clarinet. Under the umbrella of the Liverpool Music Support Service, there were after-school music groups that were in different parts of the city, in different schools midweek. On the Saturday, we would all meet in what was called the Saturday morning music school.”
Simpson joined the Merseyside (now Liverpool Philharmonic) Youth Orchestra, which led him to the National Youth Orchestra and ultimately becoming in 2006 the first-ever winner of both BBC Young Musician of the Year and BBC Proms/Guardian Young Composer of the Year at the age of 17. Simpson continues to share his time between composing and work as a clarinettist.
Mark Simpson’s residency is launched on 25 September with the UK premiere of his viola concerto, Hold Your Heart in Your Teeth, with the RLPO conducted by Andrew Manze. The 30-minute work is a musical response to a Romanian proverb encouraging you to ‘face your fears head on and move forward with courage’. Soloist Timothy Ridout gave the world premiere last December at the Philharmonie in Berlin with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester under Robin Ticciati. Following the performance in Liverpool, Ridout gives the Swiss premiere as part of a further Simpson residency with the orchestra of the Musikkollegium Winterthur in November, and first Dutch performances with Philzuid in Maastricht, Eindhoven and Utrecht in February/March.
Liverpool events in the New Year include a concert on 14 January at the Tung Auditorium featuring Simpson’s Geysir for wind ensemble coupled with Mozart’s Gran Partita, seeing him as clarinettist leading musicians from the RLPO in the same repertoire pairing as on the acclaimed Orchid Classics recording. This is followed on 26 March by Simpson’s large-scale score for baritone, small chorus and orchestra, The Immortal, described at its first performance in 2015 as “a blazingly original oratorio” (The Guardian) and as “the most thrilling new choral work I have heard in years” (The Times). Melanie Challenger’s text explores paranormal events in the late Victorian era when mediums in different countries began writing down the same messages from a deceased psychical researcher who was harbouring a dark secret. For the performance at Philharmonic Hall, Exaudi provides the choral voices from the beyond, and the RLPO is conducted by Daniela Candillara.
Simpson appears on 29 April as soloist in John Adams’s virtuosic and heartfelt clarinet concerto Gnarly Buttons, in a concert at the Tung Auditorium by the RLPO’s contemporary music group Ensemble 10:10, conducted by George Jackson. To close the Liverpool series on 11 May, Simpson plays his Lov(escape) and Echoes and Embers in a recital with pianist Ian Buckle combining clarinet classics with contemporary works. Simpson describes how, “at this relaxed evening with me in the Music Room, I’ll be talking about growing up in Liverpool and how vital it was for my musical development, and performing the music by my former composition teachers that brought me along the way”.
This summer has seen the highly successful world premiere at the BBC Proms of Mark Simpson’s ZEBRA for electric guitar and orchestra, with soloist Sean Shibe. The concerto’s subtitle 2-3-74: The Divine Invasion of Philip K. Dick refers to the visions experienced by the American science fiction author and this mystical revelation formed the impetus for Simpson’s score. The composer is currently working on a new piano concerto for Víkingur Ólafsson.
> Further information on Work: Hold Your Heart in Your Teeth
Photo: Matthew Johnson