Aaron Nihal King

I Walked Across Two Languages

text by Mashhaal Ash Rana

Aaron Nihal King is a British-Sri Lankan composer whose work spans a wide range of musical genres. His recent setting of Frederick Forsyth’s poem ‘Fallen Soldier’, recorded by the Luceat Choir for Remembrance this year, was praised by Philip Stopford as ‘tender and deeply emotional’. Reflecting on Aaron’s choral compositions, Paul Mealor remarked that ‘choirs everywhere need to sing this music’.

Aaron was the winner of the 2017 Oxford University Music Society Composition Competition and the 2019 Sir David Willcocks Carol Competition. Recent work includes a ‘micro-opera’ for Birmingham Opera Company and a commission from the Wooburn Singers. Other projects include orchestrating for major feature films including the final two Mission: Impossible films, and composing the score for Come Dine With Me: The Musical.

Aaron is delighted to have been shortlisted for Undiscovered Voices, and would like to thank Mashhaal Ash Rana for permission to use her poem.

Cassie White

Travel Lines

text by Cassie White

Cassie White (b. 1997) is a composer based in Leeds, specialising in music for video games by day, and evocative choral music by night. Cassie’s choral music has been featured at events such as TORCH’s Women’s Spaces in Sound, Oxford Song, and Aldeburgh Music’s Friday Afternoons, and performed by groups such as the BBC Singers, Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus, and Leeds Guild of Singers. She was awarded 2nd Prize in the Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus’ 2025 Stella Jockel Competition for her piece ‘for music like the sea’, and Aldeburgh Music awarded her the Britten-Pears Young Songwriter of the Year award in 2015 for her piece ‘Waves of Time’.

Cassie studied Music at Oxford University from 2016-2020 with Professor Martyn Harry & Eugene Birman, and for her Master’s in Music for Interactive Games at Leeds Beckett University, graduating in 2022. Since then, she has worked at PitStop Productions as an in-house composer for games.”

James Jones

Travelling

text by William Wordsworth

James Jones is a British composer whose music spans television, film, theatre and the concert hall. Born and brought up in Pembrokeshire, Wales, he later studied composition with Sir Harrison Birtwistle at King’s College London and with Dario Marianelli at the Royal College of Music.

His concert music has been performed by mezzo-soprano Anna Stephany, London Brass, the choir of St John’s Wood church and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. James has written extensively for television and film, with scores featured on the BBC, ITV and Channel 4.

Recordings include Principia for piano and orchestra, inspired by the life and work of Sir Isaac Newton, Murmurations for cello and electronics, performed by Joe Zeitlin and Short Stories Vol. I, a collection of pieces alluding to a world of books, words and storytelling, recorded by violinist Zahra Benyounes and pianist Jeremy Young.

James lives in Kent with his husband, Steve.

James Woodhall

Hold On

text by James Woodhall

James Woodhall is a composer, conductor and pianist. He is a dedicated and experienced teacher and loves working with ensembles and helping pupils compose their own music. Choral music is his first love, and he enjoys directing singers of all ages. He has written pieces for schools, churches and other groups including his own chamber choir, Cantores Lucis who recorded an album of his music which was released in July this year on Divine Art Records. James was a finalist in the Rocky Mountain Chamber Choir’s Call for Scores 2023 and their recording of his piece ‘When Darkness Descends’ has led to requests for the score from around the world and performances including in the U.K., South Korea, the U.S.A., and Germany.

Olly Bowes

Ēala Ēarendel

text from The Exeter Book

Oliver Bowes, baritone and composer, was the Jessie Sumner Scholar at the Royal College of Music, where he studied with tenor Ben Johnson and coaches Bryan Evans and Ian Tindale. While working mainly as a soloist for Opera and Oratorio, he also composes, with a focus upon dramatic and liturgical music, previously studying under John Pickard and David Bednall and winning awards for his cantata CROW, setting Ted Hughes’ poetry, and his symphonic suite 5 Images after Szukalski. He was also honoured to both write and perform in a new operatic retelling of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray in association with LoveOpera in 2019. His work as a composer continues, with recent compositions including pieces for short films, choirs, solo singers and chamber ensembles, as well as a set of new orchestrations of operatic arias and classical songs for the Southrepps Festival.

Sarah Henderson

Wanderers

texts by William Wordsworth and Kahlil Gibran

Sarah Henderson is a freelance composer, cellist and soprano based in London. She recently graduated with a BA in Japanese Studies from the University of Cambridge, where her experience as a choral scholar in The Choir of Trinity College sparked a great love of writing music for choirs. Three of her sacred pieces have been performed in evensong by Trinity College Choir, and she has written secular works for Coro Spezzato and the Hildegard Singers. Last year she was commissioned by The Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge, to write a set of canticles for lower voices. Her setting The St. John’s Service was premiered in February 2025 and has since been performed on tour in the USA.

When not involved in music, Sarah can often be found doing quizzes – she is still living off her seven episodes of fame when she represented Trinity College Cambridge on BBC’s University Challenge in 2023-24.