Described as “at once intimate and visionary” (BBC Music Magazine), Freya Waley-Cohen’s music is characterised by contrasts between earthy rhythmic play and fragility, luminous spaces, and a sense of the otherworldly.
Waley-Cohen has been commissioned by institutions and ensembles including Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Proms, Wigmore Hall, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, The King’s Singers, Manchester Collective and The Hermes Experiment, as well as the Aldeburgh, Presteigne, Santa Fe, and Cheltenham festivals.
Upcoming orchestral premieres in 2025/26 include a violin concerto for Tamsin Waley-Cohen commissioned by BBC NOW, Aldeburgh Festival, and Philharmonie Luxembourg for their Rainy Days festival and a concertino, The Ladybird, touring with Lucie Horsch and Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, which follows on from Waley-Cohen’s 2022 work Variations on Sellinger’s Round for Horsch and Amsterdam Sinfonietta. Upcoming chamber include a string quartet commissioned by Wigmore Hall and Sacconi Festival to celebrate 25 years of the Sacconi Quartet; a wind quintet commissioned by the Academy of St Martin in the Fields for a US tour; and a solo guitar work commissioned by the International Guitar Festival.
In October 2024, Waley-Cohen released her debut album Spell Book on NMC Recordings, which was selected as Editors Choice by Gramophone Magazine, described as ‘uncompromising yet seductive … opening portals to alternative relativities where logic bends and conventional boundaries dissolve’ by Limelight and called “sophisticated, contemporary and feminist - even quite confronting” by BBC Music Magazine. The title track Spell Book, performed by Héloïse Werner (soprano), Katie Bray (mezzo-soprano), Fleur Barron (mezzo-soprano), and Manchester Collective, draws inspiration from the rituals of spellcasting through a series of spell-songs. January 2024 saw a concert presented by Manchester Collective at the Barbican dedicated to Waley-Cohen’s works, including the premiere of the complete Spell Book
Spell Book is based on poems from WITCH by Rebecca Tamás, which Waley-Cohen also used for the subject of her first opera, commissioned to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Royal Academy of Music. The world premiere took place in March 2022, directed by Polly Graham and conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth. WITCH was subsequently nominated for an Ivor Novello Award in 2022.
Waley-Cohen’s notable orchestral works include Mother Tongue (2024), a large-scale work commissioned London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Edward Gardner; After June (2025), a work written for Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment as a response to Fanny Mendelssohn’s Das Jahr; Demon (2023), commissioned by City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra; and Pocket Cosmos (2022), premiered and commissioned by London Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Pekka Kuusisto, which concluded her year as London Chamber Orchestra’s Composer-in-Residence for the 2021/22 season.
Among her recent chamber works are the moon, the moss & the mushrooms (2024), a song cycle for Roderick Williams and Christopher Glynn commissioned by Two Moors Festival, Shipston Song and Music-in-the-Round; Pisces (2024), written for Archipelago Collective’s 10th anniversary festival; and Stone Fruit (2023), a work for Colin Currie Percussion Quartet premiered at Wigmore Hall in February 2024.
Waley-Cohen has created several immersive works and installations including Permutations (2017), an interactive artwork and a synthesis of architecture and music created during an Open Space Residency at Snape Maltings from 2015–17.
Waley-Cohen was the 2019/20 Associate Composer at Wigmore Hall which included a day of concerts focused on her music, and Associate Composer of St. David’s Hall’s contemporary music series Nightmusic from 2018–21.
Winner of a Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize in 2017, Waley-Cohen held an Open Space Residency at Snape Maltings from 2015–17 and was 2016–18 Associate Composer of Nonclassical. She was a founding member and artistic director of the Listenpony concert series and record label. Waley-Cohen currently lives in London.