Alex Symcox, winner of the Oxford Symphony Orchestra’s composition contest, tells Nicola Lisle about his latest piece

Alex Symcox started getting into music, he says, “really late”, but since then the 21-year-old composition student has been making up for lost time.

He took up piano at the age of 12 and started writing and arranging music three years later.

Last year, he had a career boost by winning the Oxford Symphony Orchestra’s inaugural Composition Competition, beating more than 80 other entrants to earn the privilege of writing a new commission for the orchestra and working alongside conductor Robert Max to prepare the piece for performance this Saturday.

His new work is based on John Donne’s poem At the Round Earth’s Imagined Corners.

It is, he feels, a natural follow-on to one of his competition-winning pieces, Frantic.

“It was a very short piece; very crazy.” he laughs. “It was pretty frantic, very fast and very hectic. The judges said they enjoyed it, so I’ve done something like that again, but with a bit more control.

“Donne’s poem is a religious poem. I’m not really religious, but it’s a pretty cool title. I like it because it’s quite juxtaposing and my piece is like that, so there’ll be lots of fluid bits, juxtaposed by a mechanical section.”

“I was really happy,” he recalls of his win. “I was really shocked, actually. It gave me a lot of confidence, because I’m not one of these born and bred composers.

“I’ve not been doing it since I was six years old, so it was a big relief. A lot of people at my college have been winning competitions since they were about 12.”

Alex’s interest in writing music was stirred when he was at Wycliffe School in Stonehouse, Gloucestershire.

“I got interested when I was studying for my GCSE,” he says. “Luckily, during my last year of school, I managed to get some lessons at the Royal College of Music and then I got accepted for the Royal Northern College of Music, which is where I am now.”

A highlight during his school career was writing the score for a student production of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials at the age of 16.

This was the catalyst for what has become an almost continuous flow of compositions and arrangements, including dance music, orchestral and chamber music, a choral work performed by the BBC Singers at a workshop at the corporation’s Maida Vale studios and music for installations at the British Museum in London.

He has had his electronic music released on the Nonclassical record label founded by Gabriel Prokofiev, grandson of Sergei Prokofiev, and regularly arranges pop music for the RNCM Session Orchestra, which has performed at venues such as the Liverpool Echo Arena, Birmingham O2 Academy and the Royal Albert Hall.

His passion is writing for films, documentaries and web series and hopes it will play a major part in his career.

Saturday’s concert will be conducted by Robert Max and also feature Walton’s Cello Concerto with soloist Ariana Kashefi, and Brahms’ Symphony No.2.

Oxford Symphony Orchestra Concert
Oxford Town Hall
Saturday, 7.30pm
Tickets: Call 01865 305305 or visit ticketsoxford.com