Zoë Martlew

Über Zoë Martlew

Zoë Martlew composes music that moves between worlds: crystalline and raw, comic and sacred, intimate and vast. Her works weave ancient echoes with futuristic soundscapes, drawing on myth, language, and archetype to create music that feels both timeless and vividly alive. Her debut composer album Album Z (NMC Recordings) was widely praised as “one of the wild ecstatic highlights of last year’s releases” (BBC Radio 3), confirming her as a distinctive and fearless new compositional voice.

Praised as “dazzling, gleefully tawdry, deeply funny and electrifying,” Martlew’s works have been commissioned and performed at major festivals and venues worldwide – including BoulezSaal (Berlin), Kings Place London, Royal Festival Hall; Aldeburgh, Huddersfield, Dark Music Days (Iceland), Endellion and Tanglewood Contemporary Music Festivals; Linbury Studio (ROH), Wigmore Hall, Zipper Hall (LA) and ISCM World Music Days, where she represented Britain as composer-performer.

Her music has been championed by the London Sinfonietta, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Camerata Pacifica (US), Grossman Ensemble (Chicago), Riot Ensemble, Marian Consort, Onyx Brass, and leading soloists including Claire Booth, Nicholas Daniel, Anna Dennis, Alessandro Fisher, James Gilchrist, Ben Goldscheider, Mark Padmore, Lucy Schaufer, Mark Simpson, and Huw Watkins.

Martlew’s path to composition is richly woven from her many-layered life as a cellist, cabaret artist, presenter and educator — performing around the world with major contemporary-music ensembles and in collaborations spanning improvisation, film, dance, theatre, electronica, pop, and rock, alongside her own one-woman show Revue Z.

A familiar voice in the media, she has appeared on BBC TV and radio, Maestro, Newsnight, Proms, Young Musician of the Year, as concert presenter for Wigmore Hall and Barbican Centre in London, as well as host of The Music That Made Me podcast. Her writings have appeared in Classical Music Magazine, The Strad and other publications, and she has served as juror for Young Musician of the Gulf, Royal Philharmonic Society, Ivors Awards and Eurovision Song Contest.

She increasingly brings these strands together through curated concerts and large-scale projects that combine composition, performance and narrative framing.

As teacher and mentor, she has guided young musicians across continents—from the National Youth Orchestra GB and Palestinian Youth Orchestra to residencies in Tanglewood, Saigon, and Arctic Norway. She studied at Clare College Cambridge, the Royal College of Music, the Royal Academy of Music, and the Chopin Academy in Warsaw.

At the heart of all her work—whether composing, performing, or presenting—is a fascination with sound as symbol and transformation: music as a living force that can both delight and awaken.

“An exhilarating journey of discovery” – John Fallas, Gramophone

“A theatrical tour de force. Contemporary classical with a thrilling edge.” – Mark Kidel, The Arts Desk

“The music rises to a plangent emotional peak.” – Wall Street Journal

“Vertically witty and musically sexy.” – Fiona Maddox, The Observer

“The most moving of these tributes was Zoë Martlew’s mostly electronic O-lude.” – Ivan Hewitt, Daily Telegraph

“The cathartic musical language reflects Martlew’s shift in focus from instrumentalist to composer. Searing… apocalyptic… epic.” – Claire Jackson, BBC Music Magazine

“a pace that nearly set the floor on fire.”   – Independent on Sunday

“laugh-out-loud funny piece of musical theatre. Here the vocal, breath and body sounds provide proper silliness” – Anne Templar BBC Music Magazine

“Fittingly, however, all was eclipsed by a ghostly collage put together by Zoë Martlew.” – Fiona Maddox, The Times

“A colourful Faustian mini-drama …the album’s highlight.” – Pwyll ap Siôn, Gramophone

Zoe Martlew Website