William Mival is a composer, broadcaster, writer and teacher. From 2004 until 2022 he was Head of Composition at the Royal College of Music in London where he grew a diverse, energetic and world-leading faculty which attracted and nurtured an exceptional array of today’s most gifted emerging composers.

Born in Rhyl, in North Wales, William Mival was a student of Anthony Milner, Robert Saxton and, in Cologne, of York Höller. He has written works for, amongst others, Ensemble Gemini, the Belcea String Quartet, The BBC Symphony Orchestra, The Welsh Chamber Orchestra, the virginalist Sophie Yates, the pianist Andrew Ball, the baritone Jeremy Huw Williams and the Choirs of Salisbury Cathedral. He has taught world-wide and has given lectures and classes in, amongst others, Berlin, Jerusalem, Shanghai and Singapore.

William Mival’s writings include a survey of the performance history of Stockhausen’s Gruppen for the Cambridge History of Musical Performance (published in 2012). As a broadcaster he has been a regularly heard on BBC Radio, in particular on Radio Three’s Record Review and is a frequent contributor to the ‘Building a Library’ segment of the programme where his meticulous exploration of some of the most frequently performed and recorded works in the catalogue, from Beethoven to Mahler and from Rachmaninov to Strauss have won praise from listeners and continue to be available on podcast. He has also made appearances on television introducing performances from the BBC Proms and also discussing the concept of musical ‘resonance’ on BBC Television’s The Culture Show with sculptor Conrad Shawcross.

Mival’s On the Ringstreet was written for the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s Land Rover sponsored Sound Discovery Programme in 1996 and first performed by the orchestra conducted by Pascal Rophé. His Quartet RBG, was premiered at City Recital Hall, Sydney, by the Belcea String Quartet as part of the Michael Berkeley curated chamber music series at the Sydney Festival in January 2002 and repeated the following week at the Wigmore Hall in London during a BBC Lunchtime concert.

His orchestral work Tristan-still which was commissioned by Radio Three and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, was first performed at the Barbican Concert Hall in February 2003 conducted by Donald Runnicles and broadcast live. Tristan-still was also that same year shortlisted in the orchestral category of the inaugural British Composers Awards. ‘And Singing Say and Saying Sing’ – The Private Devotions for the Hours of Prayer of John Cosin received its first performances in Salisbury and London in 2012 by the Choirs of Salisbury Cathedral led by their Director of Music, David Halls.

Mival’s Correntandemente (Runningly – ish) for large ensemble which was written for the RCM New Perspectives Ensemble and a concert celebrating the work of RCM composers led by London Sinfonietta clarinettist Timothy Lines, was also selected for performance at the Beijing Modern Music Festival as part of the ISCM World Music Days, having been nominated by the Wales section of the ISCM. It was performed in Beijing in May 2018 as part of the Beijing New Music Festival: The Tianjin Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Li Yang.

His orchestral work Pluen (feather) was written to a commission by the Laurence Modiano Charitable Trust The world premiere was given in January 2019 by the RCM Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Martyn Brabbins. The Chinese premiere followed in November 2019 with the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zhang Liang and the UK professional premiere in May 2022 by the Philharmonia Orchestra. A substantial new work for the Philharmonia Orchestra, Vale - a pastoral symphony was completed in August 2023 and was supported both by the Laurence Modiano Charitable Trust and the Composers Fund of the Performing Rights Society Foundation.

The Philharmonia was founded in 1945 by EMI producer Walter Legge, and has worked with a who’s who of 20th- and 21st-century musicians. Finnish conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali took up the baton as Principal Conductor in September 2021. The sixth person to hold the title, he is known for his expressive, balletic conducting style and irrepressible energy.
Herbert von Karajan, Otto Klemperer, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Arturo Toscanini, Riccardo Muti and Esa-Pekka Salonen are just a few of the great artists to be associated with the Philharmonia, and the Orchestra has premiered works by Richard Strauss, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Errollyn Wallen, Kaija Saariaho and many others.
Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, in the heart of London, has been the Philharmonia’s home since 1995.
The Orchestra also has residencies at venues and festivals across England, each embracing a Learning & Engagement programme that empowers people to engage with, and participate in, orchestral music.
The Philharmonia’s international reputation is built in part on its extraordinary 79-year recording legacy, which in the last ten years has been built on by pioneering work with digital technology. The Orchestra’s installations and VR experiences have introduced hundreds of thousands of people to the symphony orchestra. The Philharmonia has won four Royal Philharmonic Society awards for its digital projects and audience engagement work. The Philharmonia is the go-to orchestra for many film and videogame composers in the UK and Hollywood, and its music-making has been experienced by millions of cinema- goers and gamers. It has recorded over 150 soundtracks, with film credits stretching back to 1947. Since 2023, the Orchestra has released live recordings on its own label, Philharmonia Records, in collaboration with Signum Records.
The Philharmonia has over 2m listeners each month on Spotify, and a vibrant YouTube channel with over 140,000 subscribers. The channel features free performances; instrument guides; interviews with artists; and in-depth documentaries.
The Philharmonia is an official partner of Classic FM and broadcasts extensively on BBC Radio 3.
The Philharmonia is a registered charity, proud to be supported by Arts Council England, many generous individuals, corporate supporters and Trusts and Foundations.
A team of 80 outstanding musicians from 16 countries, the Philharmonia looks forward to bringing music into your life, through great concerts, recordings and ground-breaking projects, for many years to come.

Martyn Brabbins was appointed music director of the English National Opera in 2016. An inspirational force in British music, Brabbins has had a busy opera career since his early days at the Kirov and more recently at La Scala, the Bayerische Staatsoper, and regularly in Lyon, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Antwerp. He is a popular figure at the BBC Proms and with many of the UK’s top orchestras, and regularly conducts top international orchestras such as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and Deutsches Symphonie- Orchester Berlin.

Known for his advocacy of new music and particularly of British composers, he has conducted hundreds of world premières across the globe. He has recorded over 120 CDs to date, including prizewinning discs of operas by Korngold, Birtwistle and Harvey. He was associate principal conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (1994–2005), principal guest conductor of the Royal Flemish Philhar- monic (2009–15), chief conductor of the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra (2012– 16) and artistic director of the Cheltenham International Festival of Music (2005– 07), and in 2016 was appointed visiting professor at the Royal College of Music.