Biography
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Photograph by Nicola Privato
Robert Laidlow is a composer and researcher based in the UK. His “intricate, wildly imaginative” music (The Guardian) is concerned with developing new forms of creative expression through the relationship between music, advanced technology, and scientific research.
In 2026, his debut album ‘Reality Eaters’ was released on NMC Recordings. Described as “richly multifarious, imaginative, funny (in the best sense), challenging, lovingly played” (The Arts Desk) and characterised as having “a marvellous sense of mind-expanding wonderment” (BBC Music Magazine), the album features the BBC Philharmonic, Joseph Havlat and the Piatti Quartet performing music responding to quantum physics, artificial intelligence and human creativity.
Robert’s 2025 cosmic tone poem ‘Exoplanets’, commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Basel Sinfonieorchester and Interfinity Festival, was developed through collaboration with astrophysicists working with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Through this creative process, “Laidlow's orchestra mutates into weird and wonderful forms” (Seen and Heard International) to create “a spectacular piece of contemporary music that expands the boundaries of what is possible within the genre” (Basler Zeitung).
His music investigating interactive technology and creativity spans orchestral, chamber, and solo works. ‘TECHNO-UTOPIA’ (2025), commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, and ‘Silicon’ (2022), a symphonic-length work for the BBC Philharmonic, explore human music-making in the age of AI and have been featured in the New York Times, the New Scientist, Sky News, BBC Radio, and international television. ‘Post-Singularity Songs’ (2023) for soprano Stephanie Lamprea, uses custom-built neural networks to invent creation myths and love songs, situating this technology as unreliable worldbuilder. ‘Tui’ (2024), for International Contemporary Ensemble, examines creative machines in relation to other non-human intelligence.
Projects in 2027 include ‘You Feel Like Prometheus’ for Cyborg Soloist Zubin Kanga, ‘ANCESTORS’ - immersive sonic theatre with the singer Peter Braithwaite - and ‘Hologram’ for Birmingham Contemporary Music Group.
Robert’s work has been performed and recorded by leading musicians in the UK, including the Riot Ensemble, the Britten Sinfonia, the Elias Quartet, the Piatti Quartet, Chineke!, Joseph Havlat and David Zucchi. He has been commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society Composer’s Prize, awarded an Ivan Juritz Prize, and been nominated for three Ivor Novello Composers Awards along with the RMA Tippett Medal. 'Silicon' was shortlisted for the British section of the 2025 International Society of Contemporary Music World Music Days.
Born in London, he read Music at Cambridge University before studying Composition with David Sawer at the Royal Academy of Music. From 2018-22 he was the RNCM PRiSM (Centre for Practice & Research in Science & Music) PhD Researcher with the BBC Philharmonic. He is a Senior Fellow at King’s College London, where he researches technology and music and teaches composition. In 2024 he was made an Associate Artist of the Royal Northern College of Music and since 2023 has been a Governor of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
