ABOUT

Sorana Santos is an Ivors-nominated composer, songwriter, performer, writer, and practice-based researcher whose work explores the structural, sonic, and semantic relationships between music and language. Moving between contemporary composition, jazz/improvisation, experimental songwriting, sound design, and creative writing, she draws on systems from linguistics, the natural sciences, and psychoanalysis to generate frameworks for musical and literary form; her writing, first published by Lazy Gramophone Press, is central to this, as is her use of voice, prepared piano, and keyboard instruments. She is particularly interested in process-led composition, long and miniature structures, technical appropriation, and the use of improvisation as a structural generator.

Her current work centres on symbolic languages in songwriting, with a particular focus on Joni Mitchell; her project Roads to Then developed from her research into Mitchell’s Hejira in which she recreated the 4,200-mile road trip on which Mitchell wrote the album. Combining original music, text, analysis, and ethnographic fieldwork, the project is currently being developed for further touring and publication.

Previous work similarly interconnects musical and textual forms. Ivors-nominated Our Lady of Stars / Books of Hours & Changes (2015) brought together an album, audiobook, and a book of poetry, scores, and illustrations cross-appropriating composition and literary techniques; Santos was also the librettist for her Tate/ORA Singers- commissioned choral work Reborn Sounds of Childhood Dreams I (2020); Nightwriter (2024) developed a series of time- and location-specific EPs alongside a book of photographic poems; The Sisterhood of Medial Meta-Structure (2021) extended academic research into song structure into published writing and broadcast work; and Music from the Play Pawnography (2010) used the text of the Rose Theatre Southbank production as the basis for music that functioned both within the play and as a standalone EP. A forthcoming work, The Ways In Which Peace Falls, (tbc) similarly scores an audiobook through a sonic palette derived from prepared piano.

Sorana has also been commissioned by organisations including the BBC, Bath International Festival, and the Millennium Commission, worked with ensembles and musicians such as The Ligeti Quartet and improvisers James Maddren, Conor Chaplin, and Alex Bonney, and performed at venues and festivals including the Royal Albert Hall, Southbank Centre, Oxford Contemporary Music and the London and Glasgow Jazz Festivals. Her wider commissioned work spans bespoke music and sound for live performance, broadcast, documentaries, games, and audiobooks, for companies such as Disney and Warner, and musical direction for artists associated with Sony and Red Light Management. 

Parallel to this, Sorana holds a PhD in Composition from Royal Holloway and a BMus in Composition from The Guildhall School of Music, where she studied with Diana Burrell. She has extensive experience in higher and specialist music education and has held course creation, teaching, and leadership positions at Oxford University, Royal Holloway, Nottingham University, Trinity College, The Menuhin School, and the Guildhall School of Music’s Centre for Young Musicians, developing creative practice programmes in composition, performance, songwriting, studio practice, and interdisciplinary work. She continues to mentor emerging composers through the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance (ECSA) and the Association Européenne des Conservatoires (AEC) where she also advises on Education and Sustainability.