Simon Holt was born in Bolton, Lancashire on 21 February 1958. Educated at Bolton School, Holt immersed himself in organ, piano and visual art during his sixth form years. In 1976, he attended BoltonCollege of Art for a year where he fulfilled a foundation course in all areas of visual representation. Shortly before achieving a diploma in composition from the Royal Northern College of Music, where he studied with Anthony Gilbert for four years from 1978 to 1982, he received a commission from the London Sinfonietta, which became Kites. He was soon firmly established with a series of commissions and fruitful collaborations including not only with the Sinfonietta, but also the Nash Ensemble and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, resulting in pieces such as eco-pavan, Sparrow Night and Lilith respectively. Inspired by Messiaen, Xenakis and Feldman as well as visual artists such as Goya, Alberto Giacometti and Brâncuși, his music is innately dramatic and impulsive in nature. His output is diverse, comprising chamber music, concertos, songs, opera, orchestral and piano music. Holt is a composer who demands unusual commitment from his interpreters - the intricate sound-worlds he creates often contain complex, rich textures, offset by ‘still centres’ - for the purpose of making music which speaks with extraordinary power. From 2000 onwards, Holt has written several concertos and orchestral pieces, including a table of noises, a percussion concerto for Colin Currie. Holt was Composer in Association with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales from 2008 to 2014, working closely with the conductor Thierry Fischer on pieces such as Troubled Light for orchestra and Morpheus Wakes, a flute concerto written for Emmanuel Pahud, both for the BBC Proms. Previously, Holt had been commissioned to write two orchestral pieces for the BBC Proms; Syrensong, his first orchestral piece, written for the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the viola concerto, walking with the river’s roar, for Nobuko Imai and the BBC Philharmonic. Recent commissions include the orchestral piece, Surcos, for Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker and co-commissioned by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra who gave the UK premiere with the conductor Ilan Volkov and the basset clarinet concerto, Joy Beast, for Mark Simpson and the BBC Philharmonic as part of the New Music Biennial 2017. Simon Holt’s music has been recorded on several record labels, most extensively with NMC. Holt is currently Professor of Composition at the Royal College of Music.
2004 – British Composer Award for Who put Bella in the Wych elm?
2006 – British Composer Award for witness to a snow miracle
2008 – Appointed Composer in Association with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales
2009 – British Composer Award for a table of noises
2011 – Week long residency at the Royal College of Music featuring several performances of orchestral and chamber music
2015 – 3rd Quartet was premièred by the JACK Quartet at Wigmore Hall and the Internationales Musikfestival Heidelberger Frühling
2017 – Surcos, a co-commission from the Berliner Philharmoniker and CBSO, was performed three times in Berlin and opened the Berliner Philharmoniker's first appearance at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg
2017 – Basset clarinet concerto, Joy Beast, written for Mark Simpson and commissioned by the BBC, received four performances; premièred in Hull and then in London as part of the New Music Biennial 2017
2018 – Featured at the Aldeburgh Festival with a series of chamber pieces including two world premières
