Remain Composed - William King

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Welcome to Remain Composed

Season 1

Sunday, January 11, 2026 • Duration 01:02

Hello! This trailer features some of our first guests, with episodes coming your way weekly from Sunday 18th January 2026.

Anna Appleby on creative process, alter-egos, scrambled eggs and soup

Season 1 · Episode 1

Sunday, January 18, 2026 • Duration 32:57

Anna Appleby is a composer and professor of composition at the Royal Northern College of Music. Explaining her creative process, Anna says music often starts in either her body or voice, or it comes from the environment around her. She explains how the music she hears contributes to her creative output, and the role synesthesia plays in her relationship with sound.

Anna’s performer alter-ego is Norrisette. We find out how she found this voice during the Covid-19 pandemic whilst working on an opera for the BBC Philharmonic set on a fictional farm.

Anna also describes how important she finds restrictions, and the role of collaboration with performers, when commissioned to write new works. And she discusses the differences between writing for professional and leisure-time musicians.

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Jacob Fitzgerald on piano exams, programming, pens and provoking online comments

Season 1 · Episode 6

Sunday, February 22, 2026 • Duration 25:45

Jacob Fitzgerald is a composer of contemporary music. A piece Jacob wrote whilst studying music at school has been on the Trinity College London grade 8 piano syllabus. He explains how that came about, where the idea started and the response it’s had online.

Jacob discusses the programming of living composers’ music in concerts. Whilst he’s appreciative of opportunities, Jacob says sometimes it can be frustrating to be a token piece of new music.

Jacob says he tries to start writing music by hand, before inputting it into a computer. He says he composes quickly and doesn’t make many revisions of each piece.

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Frankie Archer on electrofolk, tragic stories, MIDI controllers and the North East

Season 1 · Episode 5

Sunday, February 15, 2026 • Duration 28:55

Frankie Archer is an electrofolk artist who blends traditional music with synths and electronics to create a truly distinctive sound. She says she didn’t set out to necessarily create electrofolk music at first, but to bring together her interests.

Frankie explains how she comes across tunes and stories to work with and the process she goes through to make them her own, often starting by plucking melodies on her fiddle.

Frankie suggests the reason folk music contains lots of sad stories may be a reflection of people’s obsession with drama and gossip.

Frankie describes how she involves audiences in her live gigs, using special MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) controllers, and explains where the idea for that began.

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David Lancaster on ideas, influences and being a Birtwistle fanboy

Season 1 · Episode 4

Sunday, February 8, 2026 • Duration 29:23

David Lancaster is a composer and associate professor of composition at York St John University. He says while he writes a wide range of music, all of his work is related and each piece is a chip off a bigger block.

David constantly has a list of musical ideas queuing up, waiting to be written. He lives in York and he discusses how some of his ideas come from the city’s architecture, not least York Minster, and the stories of people who have lived in the city through history.

David describes the process he goes through when writing a new piece: often starting with the structure, then collecting material and developing ideas in a sketchbook before stitching them together. And David explains the joy he gets out of working together with performers.

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Sharneisha Joyner on screen music, marching bands, Trump and teacakes

Season 1 · Episode 3

Sunday, February 1, 2026 • Duration 29:54

Sharneisha Joyner is a composer based in North Carolina. She explains how she first got into composing for video games, and the difference between writing for games and film. She says starting with a blank sheet of paper can be frightening, but she draws inspiration from listening to a wide range of music as well as day to day life.

Sharneisha’s music has also been inspired by political events. She tells us how Donald Trump’s first presidential victory inspired her to write a requiem for America, and apply to transfer to the UK.

One of Sharneisha’s most formative musical experiences was playing in her school’s marching band. She gives us an education in American marching bands, and describes the practical requirements when writing music for them.

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Paul Mealor on royalty, poetry, productivity and doing your thing

Season 1 · Episode 2

Sunday, January 25, 2026 • Duration 32:50

Paul Mealor is one of the world’s most performed living composers. He’s written music for many national occasions, including King Charles’ coronation. Paul explains how ‘Coronation Kyrie’ came into being, and how he marks the anniversary of the coronation each year.

Much of Paul’s output is choral music, and he talks about the challenges of setting text. Paul says some poets speak to him musically, and others don’t, even if he enjoys reading their work. He also describes the emphasis he places on craft, ensuring lines are practical.

He also describes the influence of growing up singing in St Asaph Cathedral in Denbighshire, his composition lessons with William Mathias and his time studying at the University of York.

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Melanie Spanswick on composing for beginners, compiling anthologies, music education and musical titles

Season 1 · Episode 11

Sunday, March 29, 2026 • Duration 29:20

Melanie Spanswick is a pianist, author, teacher and composer. She’s a piano faculty member at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Eton College, and she’s a regular contributor to Pianist Magazine. She tells Remain Composed that composition is an activity she’s come to relatively recently.

Melanie explains the process that goes into compiling anthologies, such as her ‘Play it again’ series designed for people returning to the piano after a break. Melanie discusses the challenges of making music for beginners which is both playable and not boring.

Working as an adjudicator of music festivals, Melanie says she’s seen numbers of performers falling. She says it’s a real shame, and everybody should learn a musical instrument.

Melanie describes what goes into writing her piece and column for each edition of Pianist Magazine - and how she manages to come up with names for so many individual works. She also has words of advice for anyone entering the magazine’s composing competition.

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Thomas James Owen on thinking fingers, emotional connotations, Luddites and being yourself

Season 1 · Episode 10

Sunday, March 22, 2026 • Duration 31:40

Thomas James Owen is in the early days of his compositional career. Thomas has always been curious about how and why music can evoke emotions. Thomas says he’s learnt to not imitate other composers, but he does sometimes aim to generate the feelings he’s felt when listening to certain works.

Thomas writes music most days. Normally, while sitting at his keyboard, his fingers come up with the ideas before his head does. He describes how he uses different processes to develop those ideas.

While discussing creative stimuli, Thomas discusses experimenting with his daughters to see whether they can associate ‘positive’ thoughts with major chords.

Thomas says AI-created music is only rehashing stuff it’s heard before. He says the only way to get a quality product is to use human creatives, though he does concede that times seem to be changing rather quickly.

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Dawn Walters on Shakespeare, painting pictures, university and composing a playground.

Season 1 · Episode 9

Sunday, March 15, 2026 • Duration 27:17

Dawn Walters has written vocal settings of all of Shakespeare’s songs, and many of his sonnets. She explains how she discovered her love of Shakespeare - and tells us how that project started and grew.

Dawn says her ideas often stem from mental pictures, which she develops by thinking about the text she’s setting. She says the final versions of her pieces are often very different to the initial drafts. Dawn says she tries to reflect her own emotions in each piece.

Dawn explains how competitions can be great experiences for composers - but some come with hefty entry fees. She also discusses the benefits of going to university as a mature student.

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Remain Composed – Details, episodes & analysis

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Remain Composed – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

Other23

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Publication history

Latest published episodes

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Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

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