ABOUT

Sorana Santos is an Ivors British Composer Award–nominated composer, songwriter, performer, and writer whose work spans concert music, recorded albums, interdisciplinary performance, and sound-based research. She holds a PhD in Composition from Royal Holloway, University of London, and her practice is characterised by a sustained investigation into how musical structure, language, and meaning intersect and are interdependent, and how compositional and literary form can be shaped by systems drawn from literature, psychology, and the physical sciences.

Santos’ output moves fluidly between acoustic and electronic media, integrating voice, piano, prepared instruments, sound design, field recording, and improvisation within formal ensemble and orchestral frameworks. Her interdisciplinary project Our Lady of Stars / Books of Hours - a combined album, audiobook, and book - exemplifies her hybrid approach to form, translating research-driven concepts across musical, literary, and sonic contexts.

Her music has been published by Warner and released internationally, recognised with an industry award for innovation in sound design, and broadcast widely. She has received commissions from organisations including Tate Modern, ORA Singers, the BBC, the Rose Theatre Southbank, and the Millennium Commission, and her work has been presented at venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, Southbank Centre, Oxford Contemporary Music, and the Glasgow Jazz Festival. Alongside concert work, she composes and designs bespoke sound for film, games, documentaries, and audiobooks.

She has worked with ensembles and performers including the Ligeti Quartet, Juice Vocal Ensemble, and leading improvisers across jazz and contemporary music. Her writing, first published by Lazy Gramophone Press, evolved into interdisciplinary projects that integrate text, sound, and performance.

Alongside her artistic practice, Santos has an extensive background in higher education and mentoring. From 2003, she founded and developed creative practice education at the Centre for Young Musicians (a division of the Guildhall School), designing and delivering its first sustained programmes in songwriting, composition, studio practice, and interdisciplinary creative work, fostering many Grammy and MOBO-winning artists as well as national and international names. Building on this work, she later held lecturing and course leadership positions at the University of Oxford, Royal Holloway, and Trinity Laban while serving as musical director for artists represented by Red Light Management and Sony. She mentors emerging composers internationally through schemes such as the AEC-ECSA Alliance (co-funded by the European Commission), & contributes to strategic initiatives in music education and sustainability as a member of the AEC Education & Sustainability Working Group.

Santos studied composition at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and has received substantial creative and academic funding. Alongside her compositional practice, she works with abstract photography informed by theories of time and simultaneity.