Philip Dutton is a British-Czech composer whose music is increasingly in demand internationally. Between 2022 and 2023, Dutton was a Britten Pears Young Artist, a London Philharmonic Orchestra Young Artist and a Royal Philharmonic Society Composer. He is currently working on a new commission for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s 2025/26 season, to be conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth and premiered at City Halls, Glasgow in February 2026. In 2025, he co-founded the Trans-Atlantic Ensemble with fellow composer Michael Small. Dutton’s music expresses his love for storytelling and curiosity, in music that is often colourful, vivid and direct, frequently drawing upon his rich Czech-British-Jewish cultural heritage for inspiration.
Performers of Dutton’s music include the London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Singers, ORA Singers, Britten Pears Contemporary Ensemble, Engegård Quartet, EXAUDI, conductors Jonathan Berman and Brett Dean, pianists Cristian Sandrin and Tyler Hay, mezzo-soprano Katie Macdonald, flautist Daniel Shao and clarinettist Scott Lygate. Upcoming performers include the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth, and the Trans-Atlantic Ensemble conducted by Michael Small. His works have been performed at venues across the UK and Europe, including Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Barbican Centre, Brucknerhaus Linz, Lille Opera, St John’s Smith Square and Cadogan Hall; at festivals such as the Aldeburgh International Festival and the Lofoten International Chamber Music Festival; and have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
Dutton studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Matthew King, the Purcell School of Music with Simon Speare and at Wells Cathedral School with Joseph Phibbs and Richard Causton. His other mentors have included Julian Anderson, Brett Dean, Magnus Lindberg, Colin Matthews and Mark-Anthony Turnage. Dutton has attended such prestigious international composition courses as Creative Dialogue (France) and the Britten-Pears Course in Contemporary Composition and Performance (UK). He is also active internationally as a teacher of composition.
Programme Note
In November 2022, I visited the National Museum in Oslo and saw an exhibition dedicated to Giovanni Battista Piranesi. I was immediately struck by the sheer imagination and craftsmanship in his etchings, which depict fantastical buildings, vertiginous staircases and crumbling ruins commandeered by nature. I was amazed.
Later, I discovered that I owned a book of Piranesi's complete etchings. Studying it at home, with the time to pause and revisit images, I came to fully appreciate their extraordinary detail, creating the illusion that they are alive and moving. This sense of movement and the freedom to browse, pause and revisit etchings at different speeds became a key influence on the piece.
Etched is fast-paced, changing character rapidly, as if flicking, stopping, observing, revisiting, pausing and wandering through a book of Piranesi etchings. Those that had a particular impact on the work include Antiquus bivii viarum appiae at ardeatinae... (View of the junction of the Appian and Ardeatine ways); Carcere VII: The Drawbridge (2nd state); Carcere XIV: The Gothic Arch (2nd state); and Veduta interna del Tempio della Tosse... (Interior View of the Temple of Cough...)