MARTLEW, ZOË

Zoë Martlew composes music that moves between worlds: crystalline and raw, comic and sacred, intimate and vast. Her debut composer album Album Z (NMC Recordings) was praised as “one of the wild ecstatic highlights of last
year’s releases” (BBC Radio 3), confirming her as a distinctive new compositional voice.

Martlew’s works have been commissioned and performed at major festivals and venues worldwide – including Boulez Saal (Berlin), Kings Place London, Royal Festival Hall; Aldeburgh, Huddersfield, Dark Music Days (Iceland) and
Tanglewood Contemporary Music Festivals; Linbury Studio (ROH), Wigmore Hall, Zipper Hall (LA) and ISCM World Music Days, where she represented Britain.

Her music has been championed by leading artists including London Sinfonietta, Camerata Pacifica (LA), Grossman Ensemble (Chicago), Riot Ensemble, Marian Consort, Onyx Brass; Claire Booth, Nicholas Daniel, Ben
Goldscheider, Mark Padmore and Mark Simpson. Schott Music publish her work.

Martlew’s path to composition draws on her many-layered life as cellist, cabaret artist, presenter and educator — performing worldwide as soloist, with contemporary music ensembles and collaborations spanningimprovisation, film, dance, theatre, electronica, jazz, pop and rock.

She’s a regular guest on BBC TV and radio, international competition juries (including Young Musician of the Gulf and Eurovision Song Contest); concert narrator for major London venues, writer, podcast and panel host. As mentor, she has guided young musicians from the NYO and Palestinian Youth Orchestra to residencies in Tanglewood, Saigon and Arctic Norway.

At the heart of her work is a fascination with sound as symbol and transformation — music as a living force that can both delight and awaken.

Photo credit - Raphaël Neal