Mark Simpson

Mark Simpson was born in 1988 in Liverpool. In 2006 he became the first ever winner of both the BBC Young Musician of the Year and BBC Proms/ Guardian Young Composer of the Year competitions.

He made his Wigmore Hall debut at the age of 17 and has performed as a soloist with many of the country's leading conductors and orchestras, including the RLPO with Vasily Petrenko, the Northern Sinfonia under Yan Pascal Tortelier and the BBC Philharmonic with Gianandrea Noseda, as well as the City of London Sinfonia, the Manning Camerata and the BBC Concert Orchestra with Carl Davis. He has also appeared with Oxford Philomusica and Cambridge Philharmonic Orchestras, performing Magnus Lindberg's Clarinet Concerto, and in 2008 he appeared as concerto soloist in the BBC's Last Night of the Proms in the Park, in Hyde Park.

As a composer Mark, has worked with some of the UK's leading orchestras and ensembles, particularly the RLPO's Ensemble 10:10, with whom he has had a long relationship. In 2008 he spent six months in Berlin, where he studied with Unsuk Chin; he attended the Dartington International Summer School in 2010, studying with Julian Anderson. He is currently reading music at St Catherine's College Oxford, and is principal conductor of the Oxford University Sinfonietta.

Mark is deeply committed to the performance of new music, particularly for the basset clarinet, and his NMC disc sees the culmination of five years' work with composers developing new works for clarinet and basset clarinet.