About
Ivor Novello award winning composer Hannah Conway is internationally recognised for her innovative work with leading opera houses, orchestras, cultural networks and arts organisations. She has directed projects in eighteen countries as a composer and artistic director including projects as a broadcaster for the BBC, as a stage presenter and cultural moderator for the European Union.
Always, at the heart of everything, is dynamic collaboration with diverse communities to create new music to platform under-represented voices and to tell powerful stories which invite new reflection of societal perceptions and systemic change.
She is Artistic Director and Founder of SOUND VOICE, an award winning company using the creation of new works of art to change that way that individuals, communities and organisations cross sector, think, listen and perceive themselves and others. She specialises in creating live performance and immersive digital installation works with a plethora of sung and spoken voices which platform hidden narratives. She brings together unique collaborations between people with lived experience, artists and professionals cross sector in biomedical research, science, technology and healthcare to create these works of art.
She was awarded the European FEDORA Digital Prize for her critically acclaimed, immersive opera-video installation, The Sound Voice Project, exploring stories of voice loss and identity. She also won an Ivor Novello Academy Award (Sound Art, 2022) for the work, described by the jury as “a striking work of exceptional emotional power” that “embraces human fragility in a moving and deeply personal way.”
She was awarded the prestigious Alternate Realities Award for the best innovative non-fiction work at international film festival Sheffield Doc Fest 2022. Her music has been broadcast by BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, BBC Television and featured by the Sunday Times, Guardian and on the BBC news.
She has composed operas in 12 different languages. Dare To Dream (Garsington Opera, 2019) and The Freedom Game (2015) both premiered at the Royal Albert Hall, each featuring 2000 singers. Water In The Desert (NYU, Abu Dhabi 2018) was commissioned by the Emirati Ministry of Culture and Beautiful World (2016) won the Education Middle East Performing Arts Award at the National Theatre, UAE.
Other commissions include the English National Opera (Towards Another World, V&A Museum 2019), London Symphony Orchestra (Max The Brave, 2014), Glyndebourne Opera (When I Am Old, 2010), the BBC Singers (Tale of Two Dragons, 2019), BBC Concert Orchestra (Amal And The Clockwork Tiger, 2013), Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (Symphonic Fairytales, 2002), Royal Opera House (Floria, 2009) and the Academy of Ancient Music (A Young Known Voice, 2017)
She was Artistic Director of Streetwise Opera from 2019-2021, the award winning opera company and charity renowned for their ground-breaking work with the homeless sector and their clients.
She has been a guest broadcaster for BBC Radio 3, commissioned to create programmes and present for BBC Radio 4 and was appointed as an adjudicator for BBC Young Musician Of The Year. She is moderator for the European Commission’s flagship EU cultural conferences, notably in 2020 for the direct dialogue between the Cultural and Creative sectors with Commissioner Mariya Gabriel, the European Parliament and Council and The EU Cultural Forum (2017) in Milan.
Sought regularly as a guest artist, Hannah has collaborated with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Opéra de Dijon, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Luxembourg Philharmonie, LʼOrchéstre de Paris, Muziekcentrum Van De Omroep, and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. She has directed opera residencies for the European Network for Opera and Dance Education (RESEO) in Serbia (Madlenianum Opera), France (LʼOpera Bastille) and Sweden (Swedish Royal Opera).
She frequently leads professional development for artists and ensembles in creative educational practice, audience engagement, and composition including consultancy for the Royal Danish Opera, Het Muziek Theater, Fundacja Nowa Orkiestra Kameralna, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, De Nederlandse Bach Vereniging the English National Ballet, for the charity Songbound in India (Mumbai/Bangalore) and Mostar Sinfonietta, Bosnia.
Hannah has presented concerts for audiences at the BBC Proms, with Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Harry Christophers and The Sixteen, Sir Mark Elder with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Sir Roger Norrington, Sir John Elliot Gardiner with the Monterverdi Choir and Orchestra and LSO Discovery Concerts, sign interpreting their first orchestral concerts for deaf children.
She was appointed Music Director of Glyndebourne Operaʼs Youth Company (2004-2011) and was Music Director of productions at the Southbank Centre in London for Southwark Splash (2007-2013) where she conducted and created music theatre productions for massed choirs and multi-instrumentalists, engaging over 3600 young people.
Hannah has guest lectured at the Royal Academy, Royal College of Music and Trinity Laban Conservatoire (UK), Prins Claus Conservatorium and Hague Conservatorium (Netherlands), Institute of Education (UCL, London) and at Cambridge University where she gained her MA (1995-9). She continues to pursue her passion collect songs from the street in her travels across the globe including Mali, Tanzania, Guyana, Cuba, Zambia and Malawi.