Biography
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Photograph by Nicola Privato
Robert Laidlow is a composer and researcher based in the UK. His “gigantically imaginative” (BBC Radio 3) music is concerned with developing new forms of creative expression through the relationship between music, advanced technology, and scientific research.
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Robert’s music investigating the intersection of classical music, 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, Bachtrack, BBC Radio, and international television. ‘Post-Singularity Songs’ (2023) for soprano Stephanie Lamprea situates emerging AI technology as unreliable creation myth storyteller and worldbuilder. ‘Tui’ (2024), for International Contemporary Ensemble, examines creative machines in relation to other non-human intelligence.
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Robert’s creative process also frequently involves collaborations with scientists. His 2025 cosmic tone poem ‘Exoplanets’, commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Basel Sinfonieorchester and Interfinity Festival, was developed through collaboration with astrophysicists and received its premiere at the Royal Festival Hall, conducted by Edward Gardner. He is midway through a long-term project translating the four fundamental forces into music, having composed ‘Gravity’ (2020) for the Echea Quartet and ‘Chromodynamics’ (2021) for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.
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Projects upcoming in 2026 include ‘Medium’ for Cyborg Soloist Zubin Kanga and ‘ANCESTORS’, an immersive solo opera with the singer Peter Braithwaite.
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 two 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.
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He is a Senior Fellow at the Department of Music, King's College London, where he researches technology and music and teaches composition, and was previously Career Development Fellow in Composition at the University of Oxford. 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 in Artificial Intelligence with the BBC Philharmonic. 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.