Sam Longbottom

Sam Longbottom is a composer and performer from North Yorkshire and currently based in Manchester. He studied at Leeds College of Music and then at The Royal Northern College of Music. He makes notated and non-notated experimental and improvised music for himself and others to perform using found, homemade, and traditional instruments. He also makes sound installations, often collaboratively, that centre around the automation of acoustic instruments.  

He has created several collaborative performance and installation works with composer Tanguy Pocquet. They have performed their works together at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, in Nonclassical concerts at The Southbank Centre and St John’s Church Waterloo in London, Chorlton Arts Festival, the RNCM, and Wharf Chambers in Leeds. A performance of their work for string instruments, turntables, and fishing line was broadcast on the BBC’s New Music Show.  

He was recently a Britten Pears Young Artist where he wrote a new work for himself, Angharad Davies, and the House of Bedlam to perform at the Aldeburgh Festival 2024. He further created an outdoor installation using repurposed organ pipes with Canadian trombonist Kalen Leung. 

He has previously written music for Contemporary Music for All (CoMA) Manchester, The Ligeti Quartet, Rosie Middleton, Opera North, and Psappha. His music has been performed at the University of Leeds, University of Sheffield, University of York, the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, the RNCM, and Leeds Conservatoire.