about

roseanna dunn

Roseanna is a composer, conductor and arts practitioner based in London whose work is guided by the application of post-qualitative and post-feminist theory to compositional praxis. She believes that engaging humanistic compositional methodologies can guide industry change, is particularly interested in entanglement as possibility for community-centred practise, and works and writes in ways that prioritise collaboration, connection, and counter hyper-individualism.

Roseanna is an ORA Singers Graduate Composer for 2025, one of five composers selected for the Ludlow Song Festival's Young Composers' Workshop 2025, and is a Help Musician's Co-Pilot Mentee. She is currently working with the North Wales International Music Festival and the Wilderness Festival as a commissioned composer, alongside her roles as Musical Director of the Aurora Choir, Composition and Post-feminisms editor at OffKitler Journal, Small Sounds Programme Lead for Pimlico, and Musician in Residence at Twickenham School. Roseanna holds a distinction-grade MPhil in composition from the University of Cambridge, was the recipient of the Arthur Bliss Prize for Composition in 2024, a Vaughan Williams Postgraduate Bursary Recipient from 2023-24, and held the graduate Assistant Director of the Inter Alios Choir position from 2023-24.

FULL BIOGRAPHY

Roseanna is a composer, conductor and arts practitioner based in London, but working across the UK. Her work is guided by the application of post-qualitative and post-feminist theory and methodology to compositional praxis. Roseanna believes that prioritising heterarchy in the process of music creation can guide industry change, and she works in ways that maximise collaboration and community, and counter hyper-individualism. Roseanna is particularly interested in the philosophy of entanglement and its possibility for community-centred creative practice: she also is fascinated by the voice as a site of tension between personal autonomy, and interpersonal connection. Roseanna is passionate about dismantling the archetype of the isolated, 'genius' composer, and strives to find modes of creation that allow for reciprocal growth across the composer/performer/audience tripartite.

Roseanna is an ORA Singer's Graduate Composer for 2025, appointed by Suzi Digby, OBE. Her new work for the ensemble, Londe Hast Ben Longe, was premiered in the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama on the 03/10/2025, and is number 86 on the ensemble's 100 commissions in 10 years commissions catalogue. Roseanna is also a Ludlow Song Festival Young Composer for 2025, with her new set of songs for Soprano and Piano, Songs from Beyond, receiving a workshop with Dr Julian Philips and a premiere in Royal Birmingham Conservatoire's main hall on the 21/09/2025. Roseanna is a Help Musician's Co-Pilot mentee for 2025 session 1, working with Dr Cameron Dodds. Previously, Roseanna was a composer in residence on JAM on the Marsh's 2024 Composers' Residency, 'Writing for Opera'. Her chamber opera War Requiem, with libretto by Grahame Davies CVO, was premiered at the festival, and was the subject of three features in OperaNow magazine.

Roseanna works as a freelance composer across the UK and beyond. Since April, she has been working on a piano commission from the North Wales International Music Festival based around the theme 'Perceptions' for Dr Iwan Llewelyn-Jones. This new work, Her Mother's Tongue, was premiered in St Asaph's Cathedral on the 12/09/25 as part of the festival's concert series: Roseanna is leading a composition workshop at Bangor University about this work in late October. In July 2025, Roseanna was commissioned by the Wilderness Festival Orchestra to create a symphonic arrangement of Netsky&HybridMind's Let me Hold You. The arrangement was performed at the Wilderness Festival 2025 on 01/08/2025. Previously, Roseanna has written pieces for VOCE Chamber Choir, the Fidelio Trio, the Marsyas Trio, the City of Cambridge Symphony Orchestra, the Incantati Trio, Sopriola, the ADC Theatre Cambridge, and the Inter Alios Choir. These works have been performed across the UK and Europe.

Roseanna completed her MPhil in Composition at Sidney Sussex College Cambridge, supported by a Vaughan Williams Postgraduate Bursary and a Stipendiary position as Assistant Director of the Inter Alios Choir. She was awarded the Arthur Bliss Prize for Composition 2024 for her Master's portfolio. Previously, Roseanna completed her BA in Music at Churchill College Cambridge as a Rob and Hillary Douglas Bursary Student, graduating with first-class honours and a Prize Scholarship Award for attainment: Roseanna was a Choral Scholar, Instrumental Scholar, and Music Sizar for the duration of her time at the college.

Alongside her work as a composer, Roseanna is currently the Musical Director of the Aurora Choir Southgate, the Composition and Post-feminisms editor for OffKilter Journal (Goldsmiths University), Programme Lead for Pimlico on the Cathedral Music Trust's Small Sounds programme, and Musician in Residence at Twickenham School. She is also active as a performer, having previously appeared at/ on the Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, St Martin in the Fields, Canadian Parliament Buildings, St Mark’s Basilica, BBC Look East and BBC Radio Three.