Mark Simpson

Short Biography

Composer and clarinettist Mark Simpson (b.1988, Liverpool) became the first ever winner of both the BBC Young Musician of the Year and BBC Proms/Guardian Young Composer of the Year competitions in 2006. He went on to read Music at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford and studied composition with Julian Anderson at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Simpson was a BBC New Generation Artist from 2012-2014 and received a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship in 2014. Between 2014 and 2019 he was Composer in Association with the BBC Philharmonic and is currently Artist in Residence with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra across the 2025/26 season.

Simpson’s oratorio The Immortal was premiered by the BBC Philharmonic at the 2015 Manchester International Festival to immediate critical acclaim. His first opera Pleasure was commissioned by Opera North, the Royal Opera in London and Aldeburgh Music and premiered in 2016. Orchestral works include Israfel, recently given its German premiere under the baton of Thomas Adès. Simpson’s series of concertos for leading soloists include a Violin Concerto for Nicola Benedetti and the London Symphony Orchestra, a viola concerto Hold Your Heart in Your Teeth for Timothy Ridout, and an electric guitar concerto ZEBRA written for Sean Shibe and premiered at the 2025 BBC Proms. The world premiere of Simpson’s piano concerto for Vikingur Ólafsson follows with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Edward Gardner in Autumn 2026.

Chamber works include Hommage à Kurtág for clarinet, piano and viola, commissioned by the Salzburg and Edinburgh International Festivals for premiere in 2016 by Simpson alongside Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Antoine Tamestit. Two virtuosic works entitled Darkness Moves, exploring ideas of poet Henri Michaux and pairing solo instrument with electronics, have been performed widely by Simpson himself as clarinettist and by hornist Ben Goldscheider. His wind quintet The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows was premiered by the Esbjerg Ensemble in 2025. A collection of Simpson's chamber works, entitled Night Music, was released in 2016 by NMC and 2020 brought a recording of wind ensemble music on Orchid Classics combining Mozart's Gran Partita with Simpson's companion piece Geysir.

Simpson continues to perform internationally as a soloist and chamber musician, with repertoire ranging from concertos by Nielsen and Magnus Lindberg, both performed at the BBC Proms, via music by Messiaen and Kurtág, to John Adams’s Gnarly Buttons programmed within his Liverpool residency. Passionate about performing music written for him by his peers and mentors, Simpson has premiered works by composers including Simon Holt, Jonathan Harvey, Edmund Finnis, and Thomas Adès, and in Autumn 2026 he premieres a new concerto by Gavin Higgins.

February 2026

Long Biography
Composer and clarinettist Mark Simpson (b.1988, Liverpool) became the first ever winner of both the BBC Young Musician of the Year and BBC Proms/Guardian Young Composer of the Year competitions in 2006. He went on to read Music at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, and studied composition with Julian Anderson at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, before being selected for representation by the Young Classical Artists Trust. Simpson was a BBC New Generation Artist from 2012-2014. He received a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship in 2014 and the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Award in 2010, was Composer in Association with the BBC Philharmonic between 2014 and 2019 and is currently Artist in Residence with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra across the 2025/26 season.

Simpson’s earliest orchestral successes included sparks, premiered at the Last Night of the 2012 BBC Proms and Israfel, composed in 2014. The Immortal, an oratorio for baritone, chorus and symphony orchestra, was premiered in 2015 by the BBC Philharmonic and Juanjo Mena at the Manchester International Festival, receiving immediate critical acclaim: ‘blazingly original’ (The Guardian); ‘the best new choral work I’ve heard in years’ (The Times). 2016 brought the premiere of Simpson’s first opera Pleasure, with a libretto by Melanie Challenger, commissioned by Opera North, the Royal Opera and Aldeburgh Music with performances in Leeds, Liverpool, Aldeburgh and London. The opera’s first German staging followed at the Theater Erfurt in 2023.

Recent years have seen a series of concertos for leading soloists include a Violin Concerto (2021) for Nicola Benedetti, who has performed it with the London Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, WDR Symphony Orchestra under Christian Mãcelaru in Cologne, and Royal Scottish National Orchestra. His viola concerto Hold Your Heart in Your Teeth (2024) for Timothy Ridout followed with performances by the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin under Robin Ticciati, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under Andrew Manze, Musikkollegium Winterthur, and on a Dutch tour by Philzuid. His electric guitar concerto ZEBRA (2025), written for Sean Shibe and inspired by sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick, was premiered at the BBC Proms last year. Simpson’s new piano concerto for Vikingur Ólafsson is scheduled by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Edward Gardner for premiere in Autumn 2026.

Two virtuosic works entitled Darkness Moves, exploring ideas of poet Henri Michaux and pairing solo instrument with electronics, have been performed widely by Simpson himself as clarinettist and by hornist Ben Goldscheider. Simpson’s Rilke setting for choir, wind and brass, Phôs, was premiered in Salzburg in 2024 and his wind quintet The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows was given its first performance by the Esbjerg Ensemble in 2025.

Simpson appears widely as a clarinet soloist and is hugely committed to the performance of new music. He performed Magnus Lindberg’s Clarinet Concerto with the BBC Philharmonic and Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, John Adams’s Gnarly Buttons with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and has given solo performances with orchestras including the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic (Vasily Petrenko), Northern Sinfonia (Yan Pascal Tortelier), BBC Philharmonic (Gianandrea Noseda and Juanjo Mena), City of London Sinfonia and BBC Concert Orchestra. Passionate about performing music written for him by his peers and mentors, Simpson has premiered works by composers including Simon Holt, Jonathan Harvey, Edmund Finnis, and Thomas Adès, and in Autumn 2026 he premieres a new concerto by Gavin Higgins.

As a chamber musician he made his debuts at the Edinburgh and Salzburg festivals in 2016 with a trio programme of Schumann and Kurtág, alongside his own new work Hommage à Kurtág, with Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Antoine Tamestit. In 2019 he was composer in residence at the Leicester International Music Festival, who co-commissioned his Oboe Quartet for oboist Nicholas Daniel, and in 2020 he was featured composer at the Trondheim Chamber Music Festival. He continues his partnerships with Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Jean-Guihen Queyras in performances of music by Helmut Lachenmann, recently performing together in Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw and Berlin’s Philharmonie. Simpson has also played recitals at the Wigmore Hall, Royal Festival Hall and King’s Place in London, Sage Gateshead, Cheltenham Festival, Lammermuir Festival, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, BeethovenFest, O’Modernt and Trasimeno Festivals.

Simpson’s first disc on NMC Prism featured him as performer; the second disc for NMC Night Music was released in 2016, featuring the composer's own chamber and ensemble works. 2020 brought a recording of wind ensemble music on Orchid Classics combining Mozart's Gran Partita with Simpson's companion piece Geysir. Mark Simpson's music is published exclusively by Boosey & Hawkes.

February 2026