Welcome to the new website of award-winning young composer Solfa Carlile.

Originally from Cork, Solfa is a twice recipient of the Bill Whelan/IMRO Music Bursary. In 2009 she graduated with a Bachelor of Music from the Royal College of Music, London with first-class honours, having studied with Joseph Horovitz and Alison Kay. She was also awarded a Masters in Advanced Composition (MMus) from the RCM in July 2011. She is an accomplished Flautist and Pianist, and works as a private teacher and Musical Director.

Her music has been performed by The London Chamber Orchestra, Okeanos and Composers Ensemble among others. Solfa was selected as the Aldworth Philharmonic Orchestra‘s Young Composer of 2010 and won the prestigious Jerome Hynes Commission Award at the Irish National Concert Hall. She was also awarded a prize for her piece Ad Locum by the London Chamber Orchestra, as part of its New/Explore series, and was one of three young composers chosen to work with Harrison Birtwistle at Dartington 2010, for a collaborative project entitled Theatre of Illusion.

Carlile is concerned with bridging the gap between accessibility and intellectuality in her work, drawing on a broad spectrum of influences, ranging from traditional folk-music and film-music to specialised, concert music.

Commissions have included a symphonic work Deirdre and Naoise for the London Irish Symphony Orchestra, The Silkie Wife, a flute concerto for flautist James Strauss, premiered in Brazil (2008), and Phantom Isle Suite, for The Aldworth Philharmonic (2010).

Solfa has recently been chosen as the winner of the Orchestra of St.Paul’s Composition Competition (March 2011) and was appointed composer-in-residence for the Orchestra. She has contributed articles to two International Arts Journals and has presented papers on Constructivism and Pre-Composition at the International Congress of Musical Signification in Krakow and the International Journal in Rome. She is based in Cork and London.