Carlijn Metselaar (1989) is a Dutch composer living in Edinburgh. She wrote The Muscle That Raises The Wing for Concertgebouworkest Young, performed in the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Konzerthaus Berlin in August ’23.  Her orchestral fanfare Vorfreude was composed to celebrate the inaugural concert of Andrés Orozco-Estrada as the new music director of the Wiener Symphoniker.  She has written for BBC Composition Wales, Uproar: Wales New Music Ensemble, Ty Cerdd’s CoDI Scheme with Berkeley Ensemble, LPO Junior Artists, and the LPO Young Composers Scheme mentored by James MacMillan.  She participated in the RSNO Composers Hub:2019, with the piece Into The Living Mountain selected for performance in February ’22.

Carlijn’s orchestral piece Herinnering will be performed by Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra in Rotterdam and Brugge this May for Remembrance Week. Her opera Theory of Everything was performed at Dutch National Opera in December ‘23-January ‘24, collaborating with spoken-word artist and librettist Roziena Salihu.  She wrote the short opera Blackout based on the play by Davey Anderson as Composer in Residence with WNO Youth Opera. She also wrote the cabaret song Well, Actually about mansplaining for Olga Vocal Ensemble’s feminism tour, commissioned by Classical Movements (Washington D.C.). Through lockdowns, she composed Lift for BBC NOW violist Laura Sinnerton’s solo CD Inner Voices (NMC Recordings).