# About Josephine Stephenson

Source: https://josephinestephenson.com/about/

Josephine Stephenson is a French-British composer and musician working across
 contemporary classical and indie music.

## Composer

#### ***"music to arrest the ears and stop the heart" ******(The Times)*   **

#### ***"exquisite" ******(The Guardian)***

 

"A bewitching combination of dissonance and sweet-toned cantabile" (*Bachtrack*), Josephine's concert music has been commissioned by insitutions such as the BBC and Radio France, and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and France Musique. She has written music for acclaimed performers including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Intercontemporain, London Sinfonietta, Tenebrae, tenor Allan Clayton, cellist Nicolas Alstaedt and guitarist Laura Snowden.

Interested in harmony and dynamic immediacy in her music, she has collaborated with theatre companies such as La Raffinerie, L'Éventuel Hérisson Bleu and FellSwoop Theatre and filmmakers including Julia Jackman and Scott Vickers. She regularly works as an arranger for songwriters and bands, which have included Damon Albarn, Daughter and Lisa Hannigan among others.

She studied at Cambridge and the Royal College of Music. She was a Britten-Pears Young Artist in 2015-16 and a London Sinfonietta 'Writing the Future' composer for 2017-19. She was composer in residence at the Opéra Grand Avignon from 2021 to 2023, and that same year won an Ivor Novello Composer Award.

####  

#### ***"Eclectic, attractive sonic landscapes" ******(The Arts Desk)***

#### ***"an assurance beyond her years" (Bachtrack)***

## Performer

#### ***"exquisitely sung by soprano-composer Josephine Stephenson"***

#### ***(The Art Newspaper)***

 

A singer and multi-instrumentalist, Josephine regularly performs with leading musicians across a wide variety of genres and scenes.

As a solo soprano, she has appeared in Morton Feldman's *For Franz Kline* with Apartment House at the Wigmore Hall (2021), in Philip Glass's epic *Music in Twelve Parts* led by James McVinnie at the Barbican (2017), in Morton Feldman's *Rothko Chapel* with LCO soloists at the Roundhouse (2016), in George Aperghis's *La Nuit en Tête *with Explore Ensemble at the Royal College of Music (2016) and in Berio's *O King* with the Bristol Ensemble at Bristol's Elektrostatic festival (2012). She was Irma in Tom Phillips's opera *IRMA* with Apartment House directed by Netia Jones (South London Gallery, 2017), and has premiered roles in operas by Anton Lukoszevieze, Kate Whitley & Joe Snape, and Joel Rust. She also sang in artist Laure Prouvost's *They Are Waiting For You *during the Performatik festival at Brussels's Kaaitheater (2019).

Her solo voice can be heard on records by Jon Hopkins, Erland Cooper and others, as well as in film scores by Volker Bertelmann, Nico Muhly or Dario Marianelli.

As an ensemble singer, she has performed extensively with UK leading choirs including Tenebrae, The Tallis Scholars, EXAUDI, Philharmonia Voices and Britten Sinfonia Voices. With the London Contemporary Orchestra, she sang on Radiohead's 2016 album *A Moon Shaped Pool* as well as Thom Yorke's score for Luca Guadagnino's 2018 film *Suspiria *and his album *ANIMA*. She is a founding member of the experimental vocal ensemble SHARDS (Erased Tapes).

Josephine was a member of the Maîtrise de Radio France as a teenager and a choral scholar at Clare College, Cambridge.

As an instrumentalist (cello, keyboards, guitars), she has performed live with artists as diverse as the Multi-Story Orchestra, The Coveryard, NZCA LINES, Ana Silvera, Ben Osborn, Shock Machine, Laura Cahen and Elena Tonra (Ex:Re). In 2017 she participated in recording the Arctic Monkeys album *Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino* on the piano.