Emily Crossland

Emily Crossland graduated from the University of York with a BA(Hons) in Music in 2007 and subsequently returned to study with Bruce Cole for an MA in Community Music, for which she was awarded a Distinction in 2010. Emily is still involved in academic life at York, working as the Director of Gamelan Sekar Petak and as a tutor on the MA and BA Community Music programmes. She is also a visiting lecturer for York St John University and Director of the University of Leeds Golden Thread Gamelan Ensemble.

As a composer, Emily's work is shaped by her passion for collaboration - with amateurs and professionals, across genres, and with other art forms. She is interested in the theatricality of music and has developed scores for dramatic productions, and also in the musicality of words, creating performance poetry and responding to text commissions from fellow composers. Her compositions have been performed across the UK and internationally, at the National Concert Hall Dublin and as part of Gaudeamus Muziekweek. She was commissioned through the BBC Performing Arts Fund and as part of Hull City of Culture 2017, and has spent several years in residence with multi-arts performance ensemble Engine Room Theatre. In 2010, Emily was one of six composers selected to take part in Adopt A Composer (run by Sound and Music, PRS Foundation and Making Music, in association with BBC Radio 3) and in 2018 she was delighted to return to the scheme as a Mentor.

Emily is an experienced educator and community musician, interested in inclusive and facilitative approaches to music-making. She spent eight years looking after the Learning & Participation programme of the National Centre for Early Music and, as a freelancer, has delivered projects for clients including Hallé, National Concert Hall Dublin, Jessie’s Fund, Castaway Accessible Music Theatre and Converge York. She is currently leading on Yorkshire-based youth gamelan programme The Sound of Bronze, funded by the National Foundation for Youth Music, and continues to run the Northern Gamelan Network, which she founded in 2015.