Lloyd Coleman is a British composer, clarinettist and the Associate Music Director of Paraorchestra.
Known as a dynamic and chameleonic musician, his work spans from concert halls to theatres, open-air festivals to street parades, recording studios to broadcast television and radio. He passionately believes the arts has a unique power to transform lives, and this belief underpins much of his creative practice.
Lloyd played a significant role in the development of Paraorchestra, the world’s only large-scale ensemble of professional disabled and non-disabled musicians founded by conductor Charles Hazlewood. They debuted to a global audience of millions with a memorable performance with Coldplay at the Closing Ceremony of the London 2012 Paralympic Games. Since his appointment as the group’s Associate Music Director in 2017, he has helped generate numerous ground-breaking projects including kraftwerk re:werk, The Nature of Why, The Anatomy of the Orchestra and SMOOSH! Paraorchestra’s debut album The Unfolding – a collaboration with Mercury Prize-nominated artist Hannah Peel – topped the UK Classical Album Chart within a month of its release in April 2022.
His own output as a composer is characterized by a liking for constant reinvention and to communicate with listeners directly and emotively. He enjoys working collaboratively and relishes any opportunity to work with forms and instruments less familiar to him. Recent composing highlights include Latent Bloom, inspired by the imagery of photographer Jack Latham and performed by Paraorchestra on a four-date UK tour; Luminescence, recorded by the BBC Concert Orchestra and conductor Ben Palmer for The Music and Meditation Podcast on BBC Sounds; and a new original score for the Irish animation short Adam Saves Christmas, broadcast by RTE during their Christmas Day schedule. Two of his pieces for students taking exam grades – Swan Song and Carnival Time – are published in the ABRSM Woodwind Exam Syllabus for 2022 onwards.
Outside of composing and performing, Lloyd is Chair of the Classical Council at the Ivors Academy, and has been a category judge for both the Ivors Composer Awards and BBC Young Composer. He is an active member of the South West Area Council for Arts Council England, sits on the advisory committee for Bristol Beacon’s Creative Learning and Engagement department and is a trustee of UCAN.
He has presented BBC Proms concerts for television, made guest appearances on In The Studio for BBC World Service, This Classical Life and Music Matters for BBC Radio 3, Archive on 4 for BBC Radio 4, YolanDa’s Band Jam for CBeebies, and numerous documentaries for Sky Arts and BBC Four fronted by Charles Hazlewood.
Born and raised in South Wales, Lloyd won a place at Chetham’s School of Music in his teens and joined the clarinet section of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. Later, he studied composition with Gary Carpenter at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He now lives in Bristol.
“an extraordinarily powerful piece of new music by the composer Lloyd Coleman, left me so blissed out I could barely pick up my pen to make notes”
“nothing short of a marvel”
“moves thrillingly from multi-soloing discord to group resolution – as the Paraorchestra’s first full commission, the symbolism couldn’t be more apt.”