Here at Sound and Music, we are greatly saddened to hear the news that 26-year old composer Lucy Hale has died. We would like to offer our condolences to her family at this time.
Born in 1994, we first met Lucy at the Sound and Music Summer School for young composers when, as a 16-year old, she was already showing great promise as a young composer. After studying at the Royal College of Music junior department, Lucy went on to study composition at the Royal Northern College of Music where she gained a BA and completed her masters in 2019 with a distinction.
During this time, she began her journey as a composer, achieving an extraordinary number of awards and milestones in a short space of time. She was the inaugural Young Composer-in-Association with BSO Resound, Young Composer-in-Residence with Orchestras for All and had just become a Royal Philharmonic Society composer, becoming the Rosie Johnson RPS / Wigmore Hall Apprentice Composer 2020-21.
Through her role as Associate Musician with Drake Music, we were delighted to work with Lucy as she became the apprentice tutor on our collaboration with Drake Music: Go Compose projects. In one session we visited, she shared a number of seminal graphic scores with the participants and talked about music that she particularly enjoyed and was inspired by. Her session was not only fascinating, but she created a fantastic role model for the young disabled people she was working with.
Disability and politics were part of Lucy’s life experience, and she was passionate about widening access to music making for all. We hope you’ll take the time to listen to her music, and join us in remembering the life of a great composer and friend.