Our artists Composer Fellowship Arthur Keegan (2026-27) Arthur Keegan is a British composer based in Halifax, Yorkshire, whose work draws inspiration from poetry and literature or responds to existing music. He became a Royal Philharmonic Society Composer in 2025 and is now the YCAT Composer Fellow for the 2026-27 season. We spoke to Arthur about his work: . My writing often begins with words, images or the ghosts of other music. Collaboration sits at the centre of my practice: I’m happiest in workshops and rehearsals, shaping ideas directly with performers and discovering, together, what a piece will become. I came to music late. A friend took me to my first ever classical concert when I was sixteen and I started writing electronic music a couple of years later. Learning to read and write notation so I could write for instruments opened the door to a community, a vocation and the full joy of classical music. That journey still informs my work: I’m drawn to projects that blur old and new, acoustic and electronic, and that hold a quiet sense of ritual and theatricality. Much of my work responds to text - from poetry to graffiti - or to existing music. I try to filter and refract these sources, lingering in the space between homage and disruption, where familiarity can become strange. My recent work has turned more explicitly towards ritual and theatricality and I’m developing stage works as a natural continuation of that shift. . In February 2026 Arthur’s piece Coalesce: Quartet for the Start of Life was premiered by Hebrides Ensemble in a tour of performances across Scotland. This piece was commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society and marked the end of his year as an 'RPS Composer'. Written as a companion to Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, the work was praised in Vox Carnyx as “instantly spellbinding” and as doing “complete justice to the formidable task”. Arthur’s debut album The Past & I: 100 Years of Thomas Hardy with mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean was released in July 2024 and reached no. 5 in the Specialist Classical Chart. The disc was received enthusiastically by audiences and received excellent reviews in national press. Presto Music named it Recording of the Week, and nominated Elegies for Emma (thesong cycle at the heart of the album) for the World Premiere Recording of the Year 2024. In 2023 Arthur’s piece Back Inside for small chamber orchestra, written for the Philharmonia Orchestra, was performed at the Royal Festival Hall and a live recording was released by NMC Recordings. This three-movement work responds to comedian Tim Key’s lockdown poetry. In 2022 the London Symphony Orchestra commissioned, performed and recorded Dorian Suite, music for six instruments, electronics and video. This suite is part of the development of a dance piece based on The Picture of Dorian Gray. Arthur’s Nocturne for guitar and electronics was featured on Canadian guitarist An-Laurence Higgins’ album Almost Touching, released in 2022. . Contact Follow Arthur online: Website Instagram Arthur's work is commissioned by YCAT in memory of Hans Keller, and supported by the Cosman Keller Art & Music Trust. . Manage Cookie Preferences