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, artificial intelligence, 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, uses AI to invent creation myths and love songs, situating this technology as oracle and worldbuilder. ‘Tui’ (2024), for International Contemporary Ensemble, examines AI in relation to other non-human intelligence.
Robert’s creative process also frequently involves collaborations with scientists. His 2025 work ‘Exoplanets’, commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Basel Sinfonieorchester and Interfinity Festival, is a set of orchestral movements developed through collaboration with astrophysicists working with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. 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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Compositional projects in 24-25 include the premiere of ‘content’, music about the Internet for saxophonist David Zucchi and electronics, ‘PLAY’, a partnership transforming video game controllers into expressive musical instruments, and an immersive solo opera with the singer Peter Braithwaite.
Robert’s work has been performed by leading musicians in the UK, including Riot Ensemble, Britten Sinfonia, the Elias Quartet, Chineke!, Psappha, and others. He has been awarded a Royal Philharmonic Society Composer’s 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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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 (the Centre for Practice & Research in Science & Music) PhD Researcher in Artificial Intelligence with the BBC Philharmonic. He is currently a Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford University. Recent publications have focussed on notions of truth, authenticity, fakeness, bias, and structuralism in technology and music. He lectures in Composition at the Faculty of Music, Oxford, is an Associate of RNCM PRiSM, and is a member of the Governing Body of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.