“all the important Bs: Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Britten, plus another: Charlotte Bray”
The Times

One of the most distinctive voices in contemporary music, Charlotte Bray combines vivid musical imagination with emotional directness and lyrical intensity. Winner of an Ivor Novello Award in 2019, her work is marked by an uninhibited ambition to communicate and frequently engages with contemporary social and political issues, including displacement, terrorism, reconciliation, environmental change and humanity’s capacity for both violence and compassion. Born in the UK and now living in Berlin, Bray has established an international reputation for music of powerful expressive force and contemporary relevance.

Bray’s music has been performed and commissioned by leading international ensembles and orchestras including the BBC Symphony and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestras, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Aurora Orchestra and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. Her work has featured at festivals including Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, Tanglewood, Aix-en-Provence, Verbier and Kuhmo, and has been championed by conductors such as Marin Alsop, Sir Mark Elder, Sakari Oramo, Oliver Knussen, Jessica Cottis, Daniel Harding, Duncan Ward and Karina Canellakis.

A major recent milestone was the premiere of Bray’s first full-scale opera, American Mother, commissioned by Theatre Hagen with a libretto by Colum McCann. Based on the true story of Diane Foley and adapted from the book by Diane Foley and McCann, the work was praised as “haunting” and “deeply moving”, confirming Bray’s growing reputation for dramatic works that address urgent contemporary themes with emotional insight and humanity.

The 2026/27 Season brings a Violin Concerto, written for Leila Josefowicz and commissioned by BBC Symphony Orchestra, Kansas Symphony, New Zealand Symphony and Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, as well as a new work for Chamber Orchestra, commissioned by L’Orchestre de Chambre de Genève, Britten Sinfonia, Swedish Chamber Orchestra and Camerata Salzburg. L’Auditori in Barcelona will present a Composer Portrait concert, curated by Bray and featuring the Spanish premiere of her new work for horn and string quartet

Among her recent orchestral and ensemble works are Nothing Ever Truly Ends for Ensemble intercontemporain as part of the Boulez Year celebrations at the Philharmonie de Paris, A Sky Too Small for Orchestre de Paris under Klaus Mäkelä, and A Dark Doorway for Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin under Robin Ticciati. Recent solo and chamber works include Mriya for Leila Josefowicz, commissioned by Wigmore Hall, Lincoln Center and Musica Viva; The Sun and Her Flowers for the Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition; and the widely performed string quartet Ungrievable Lives, inspired by artist Caroline Burraway’s installation of children’s dresses created from discarded refugee lifejackets.

Bray is Composer-in-Residence with L’Orchestre de Chambre de Genève, and has held residencies with numerous leading organisations and festivals, including Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, Spannungen Festival, Aldeburgh Music, Oxford Lieder Festival and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group/Sound and Music. Her music is recorded on portrait albums released by NMC Recordings and RTF Classical, and appears on a growing discography of chamber, orchestral and vocal recordings.