Sylvia Lim : Associate Artist
Photo: Nina Close
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Artist website: http://www.sylvialim.co
Sylvia Lim (b. 1992) is a Sydney-born composer based in London. Her works are intimate, exploring a small amount of material in depth. She is interested in the materiality of sound, notions of close listening, perception, rawness and instability. She loves exploring the timbral possibilities of acoustic instruments, often by using preparations and/or extended techniques. Her music highlights the fine details of sound, creating a very rich, yet intimate listening experience.
Works that best reflect her interests include Reframe for chamber orchestra and Overlapping Transformations for bass clarinet, violin, double bass and baritone electric guitar.
Recent commissions include music for Ars Nova Ensemble Instrumental + The Riot Ensemble, Mira Benjamin (Music We'd Like to Hear), EXAUDI, The Hermes Experiment, Prague Quiet Music Collective, and Tabea Debus + Samuele Telari. Sylvia's music has been performed by Plus-Minus Ensemble, CoMA Singers, Liam Byrne, Ben Smith, Natasha Zielazinski, Musarc, Fournier Trio, and members of the Aurora Orchestra. Her music was published in the CoMA Partsong Book, and performed at the London Contemporary Music Festival, CoMA Festival, BEAST FEaST 2021 and Barbican OpenFest's Unfinished. She was on the LPO Young Composers Programme and Psappha's Composing for Piano scheme in 2019/20, the RPS Composers Programme as a Rosie Johnson RPS / Wigmore Hall Apprentice Composer in 2020/21, and Orkest De Ereprijs's 28th Young Composers Meeting (The Netherlands, 2022). Her music has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, ABC Classic and KFAI. Sylvia is the 2022 winner of Rubiks Collective's Pythia Prize.
Sylvia completed her PhD ('Exploring organic decay through sound') at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, where she also gained a first class Bachelor of Music (Honours) and a Master of Music with distinction, winning the Ian Horsbrugh Memorial Prize for Composition in 2015. She now teaches composition at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and The Purcell School.
Sylvia Lim — current to July 2023