Laila Arafah is a London based composer whose works are often interdisciplinary and site-specific, centering on intimacy, temporality, phenomena of resonance and decay, and self-guided explorations of vulnerable, hazy, unstable sonic objects. 

Recent commissions have come from London Symphony Orchestra, Explore Ensemble, Aldeburgh Festival Podcast (hosted by BBC3’s Tom McKinney), Purcell Symphony Orchestra, Westminster Abbey’s Commonwealth Day Service, and Dartington Music Festival. Laila’s piece ‘CONCRETE’ for soloists and 70+ phones was published by the Centre of Deep Listening in a book on Pauline Oliveros. As the youngest appointment in the LSO Panufnik Scheme’s history, she’s also written for the London Sinfonietta, Carducci Quartet, London Mozart Players, Explore Ensemble, Roadrunner Trio, Commonwealth War Graves Memorial Service, Quatuor Bozzini,  Zone Expérimentale Basel, Aspen Music Festival, LCMF, CoMA String Orchestra, Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, ACA Orchestra, Talea Ensemble, Purcell Symphony Orchestra, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, and Fika Duo among others, and has been selected as a trainee for the XIV Tchaikovsky Academy, and for the IMPULS festival 2025.  Upcoming works include a piece for the International Guitar Foundation and a cello duo to be performed in St Petersburg.

 Recent performances include her piece for dismembered flute premiered by Kathryn Williams at AżTak Festival, Hashtag Lab in Warsaw, ‘Twine’ premiered in the Britten Studio, ‘under moss covered driftwood’ in Amsterdam, ‘Habitual Compulsions’ at the Boston New Music Initiative Workshop US, and in Tchaikovsky City. Her piece ‘Local Paths’ will be performed this November in Louisville, Kentucky by Talea Ensemble, and later in St Petersburg, Russia, at the Soundways festival by the Ensemble of Independent Musicians. Her music has been played across the UK, US, Austria, Netherlands, Russia, Poland, and Canada.
 

Recent awards include the Tim Stevenson Award, Frank Robert Abell Young Composer Award, Samuel-Coleridge Taylor Award (Youngest Finalist), NLF 1st prize, Junior Trinity Composition Prizes, and she has received support from the Leverhulme Bursary Award, Faber Music Bursary, The Nicholas Boas Charitable Trust, Susan and Ford Schumann Center Fellowship and The Bliss Trust.

Laila is in the second year of her undergraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music on a scholarship, studying with Rubens Askenar and Gareth Moorcraft. She has also previously studied at The Purcell School, Aldeburgh Young Musicians, and Junior Trinity Laban.