10 Contemporary Classical Composers

Classical music is having a moment – on the global stage with superstars like Rosalía and at home in Manchester with boundary-pushing ensembles like Manchester Collective.

In honour of the moment, we’re switching up our 10 Facts About series to give you 10 recommendations instead. Here’s 10 contemporary women and non-binary composers to get excited about!

Mica Levi

Mica Levi is an award-winning film composer who has scored two of the most unnerving horror-adjacent films of recent years: Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin (2013) and The Zone of Interest (2023). The score is a central feature of both films, used to create suspense during scenes of minimal dialogue. Crack Magazine recently named Mica’s disorienting score for Under the Skin the best film score of the 21st century.

Outside of the film world, Mica has an ongoing collaboration with experimental pop artist Tirzah. Listen to trip9love…??? (2023) here.

Hildur Guðnadottir

Hildur Guðnadottir is another composer who has made an extraordinary mark on the film world. The Icelandic composer has scored blockbuster films include Todd Phillips’ Joker (2019), Tod Field’s Tár (2023) and Sarah Polley’s Women Talking (2023).

She won an Emmy, BAFTA and Grammy Award for her iconic, eerie score on HBO’s Chernobyl (2019), which featured sound recordings from a nuclear power plant in Lithuania!

Hildur is also a cellist and singer, who has performed with legendary musicians including Sunn 0))) and Ryuichi Sakamoto.

Anna Meredith

Anna Meredith is a composer, producer and performer whose work straddles the worlds of contemporary classical, art pop, soundtracks, techno, installations and experimental rock. Her music has been performed everywhere from the Hollywood Bowl to BBC Last Night of the Proms to the M6 Services.

At MIF23, she performed her Mercury Prize-shortlisted album FIBS with Royal Northern College of Music Festival Orchestra, her exhilarating sound filling the warehouse space at Depot Mayfield.

Watch our studio visit here to find out more about her practice.

Meredith Monk

Meredith Monk is a titan of the genre. Her experimental approach to vocalisation is unmatched. Using the voice as an instrument, she builds ritualistic soundscapes without using a single word. Listen to understand the true breadth of the voice and its many textures and sounds – you’ll be surprised!

Meredith Monk is a true multidisciplinary artist, composing for theatre, installations and film. Her music appears in iconic films by the Coen Brothers and Jean Luc Godard as well as HBO’s True Detective (2014).

Not sure where to start? Watch documentary Monk In Pieces (2025, dir. Billy Shebar and David C. Roberts) featuring interviews with Björk and David Byrne on her mastery!

Jasmin Kent Rodgman

Jasmin Kent Rodgman is a British Malaysian composer and co-artistic director of Manchester Collective whose radical approach to programming has brought classical music to warehouses and clubs across the city.

Jasmin composes across art forms and has scored film and theatre productions including the Olivier-nominated play Paradise Now!

For MIF25, Jasmin teamed up with singer-songwriter John Grant to compose the score for the ballet A Single Man.

Ayanna Witter-Johnson

Ayanna Witter-Johnson is a multi-talented composer, singer, songwriter, pianist and cellist whose work blends contemporary classical with jazz, reggae, soul and R&B.

She has composed for several major orchestras including the London Symphony Orchestra, toured with artists including Anoushka Shankar and Andrea Bocelli, and performed with Akala on her track, Rise Up.

Check out Ocean Floor – her 2023 collaborative album with the LSO Percussion Ensemble and legendary pianist Gwilym Simcock. The album explores her Jamaican heritage, weaving island rhythms with classical influences.

Clarice Assad

Clarice Assad is a Grammy-nominated Brazilian-American composer, pianist, arranger and singer. Her sound is distinctly new, incorporating classical, Brazilian and jazz influences.

With over 70 works to her name and collaborations with orchestras all around the world, Clarice is an incredibly versatile composer. Take É Gol ! – an audience participation piece inspired by the Brazilian woman soccer player, Marta Vieira.

Caroline Shaw 

Caroline Shaw is a New York based composer with five Grammys and one Pulitzer Prize under her belt! A violinist and vocalist, she composed multiple arrangements for Rosalía’s Lux (2025), which caused a buzz for throwing the spotlight on opera and classical music.

Caroline Shaw’s best-known work is the a cappella composition Partita for 8 Voices (2013) – a uniquely modern take on choral music, inspired by conceptual artist Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawing 305 (1977). Partita was named one of the best new works of the 21st century by The Guardian and made Caroline the youngest ever recipient of a Pulitzer Prize.

Cassie Kinoshi

Cassie Kinoshi is an award-winning composer, arranger and saxophonist known for her genre-blending work. She has composed for major orchestras and ensembles including local favourites Manchester Camerata, Manchester Collective and the BBC Philharmonic.

She is currently Artist-in-Residence at the Southbank Centre and leads the eleven-piece jazz ensemble SEED. Check out the Mercury Prize nominated group here.

Cassandra Miller

Cassandra Miller is a London-based, Canadian composer of vocal, chamber and orchestral music.

Her approach is collaborative – she works closely with musicians during the composition stage and has a long-standing collaboration with the experimental string quartet Quatour Bozzini.

Cassandra’s brilliant Duet for Cello and Orchestra was hailed as one of the ‘best classical music works of the 21st century’ by The Guardian.

Hear compositions by Meredith Monk, Cassandra Miller, Clarice Assad and Cassie Kinoshi at Manchester Collective’s Patterns in Repeat on 30 June 2026. Find out more here.