Episode 139 Freya Waley-Cohen

Freya Waley-Cohen

Freya’s music is characterized by contrasts between earthy rhythmic play and fragility, luminous spaces, and a sense of the otherworldly. She has been commissioned by numerous institutions and ensembles

Her current season includes Mother Tongue, a new four movement work for the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Ed Gardner; a new work for the Archipelago Collective’s 10th anniversary festival on San Juan Island WA; and a new work for classical orchestra for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in response to Fanny Mendelssohn’s Das Jahr. Also upcoming is the release on NMC of Waley-Cohen’s Debut Disc, Spell Book, with performances from the Manchester Collective as well as Tamsin Waley-Cohen, Ann Beilby, Nathaniel Boyd, Hèloïse Werner, Fleur Barron and Katie Bray.

Other recent successes include the world premiere of Pocket Cosmos, premiered in June 2022 by commissioners London Chamber Orchestra and directed by Pekka Kuusisto, and staging of Freys’s contemporary dramatic song cycle Spell Book at Longborough Festival Opera and Waley-Cohen’s first opera WITCH, commissioned in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the Royal Academy of Music.

Freya was the 2019/20 Associate Composer at Wigmore Hall, which held a day of concerts in March 2023 focused on her music. She was also Associate Composer of St. David’s Hall’s contemporary music series, ‘Nightmusic’, from 2018 – 2021. Winner of a 2017 Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize, Freya Waley-Cohen held an Open Space Residency at Snape Maltings from 2015 – 2017 and was 2016 – 2018 Associate Composer of Nonclassical.

I spoke to Freya from her home in London.