Kerry Andrew

Kerry Andrew (born 5 April 1978) is an English composer, performer and author.

Kerry has a PhD in Composition from the University of York and is the winner of four British Composer Awards.

Their composition Dusk Songs was commissioned and recorded by The Ebor Singers, and released by Boreas Music in 2007.

Elsewhere, their work has been recorded on the Naxos and Nonclassical labels, and choral premieres have been given by the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain, The Hilliard Ensemble, ORA Singers, the Joyful Company of Singers and Alamire.

Andrew performs with the vocal trio Juice Vocal Ensemble, who have released two albums on the Nonclassical label, which include their music, as well as a collaborative album with David Thomas Broughton.

They have collaborated with the likes of Anna Meredith, Gavin Bryars, Shlomo, Errollyn Wallen and Mica Levi.

They perform alt-folk under the name You Are Wolf.

From 2007-17, they sang with Laura Cole's jazz ensemble, Metamorphic.

Andrew has written libretto for their own music-theatre works and articles for The Guardian.

Andrew was Composer in Residence at Handel House Museum during 2010-12, and was Visiting Professor of Music at Leeds College of Music in 2015-16 and 2017-18.

They won their first British Composer Award in the Making Music Category in 2010 for their choral work 'Fall', and won two awards in 2014, in the Stage Works category for their wild swimming chamber opera 'Dart's Love ' and in the Community or Educational category for their community chamber opera 'Woodwose, ' written for Wigmore Hall, and for which they also wrote the libretto.

They have written large scale pieces for young and non-professional ensembles, including 400 Lewisham-based primary school children at the Royal Festival Hall; for Animate Orchestra, the Junior Trinity Symphony Orchestra and 500 singers of the South London Riverside Partnership at the Royal Albert Hall; and for the massed choirs of the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain at the Royal Albert Hall in their piece 'who we are.' They created a concept drawing and vocal EP A Lock Is A Gate for Art on the Underground in 2011, and a work simultaneously performed by 25 community ensembles around the UK for the Landmark Trust.

Their debut album, Hawk to the Hunting Gone (2014, Stone Tape), explored British birds and folklore.

They made her short story debut on BBC Radio 4's Stories from Songwriters Series in 2014, and Jonathan Cape published their debut novel, Swansong, in January 2018.

In 2015, they wrote a piece for the London Sinfonietta to fight for the National Health Service (featuring the recorded voices of 60 members of the public, including actor/campaigner Michael Sheen).

They won their fourth award, in the Music for Amateur Musicians category, for 'who we are', a piece for the massed National Youth Choirs of Great Britain, premiered at the Royal Albert Hall in 2016.

Andrew was a British Council/PRS for Music Foundation Musicians in Residence in China in Spring 2016, spending five weeks in the Henan Province in 2016.

They made collaborative new rock/traditional-inspired songs based on foxes in folklore.

Andrew's choral works have been published by Faber Music and by Oxford University Press, including in Carols for Choirs.

Their vocal trio piece The Song of Doves concluded the national memorial service for the victims of the 7 July bombings, receiving national broadcast live on the BBC and other news outlets.

Andrew's 'No Place Like,' was written for the BBC Ten Pieces scheme, and received BBC Proms performances in both 2017 and 2018.

Andrew's debut novel, Swansong, was published by Vintage in January 2018 and a second, Skin, in 2021.

Andrew was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2018 and again in 2022.

From age 3 to age 6, Andrew lived in Canada with their family.

The family subsequently returned to the UK and settled in the Buckinghamshire area.

Andrew earned a BA in Music, MA and PhD in Composition, all from the University of York.

Their second album, Keld (Firecrest, 2018) was awarded fRoots magazine's Editor's Choice!

Album of the Year 2018 and chosen by the Guardian as a Top Ten Folk Album 2018.

They have collaborated with Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris, setting texts from their book The Lost Words.

They are a multi-instrumentalist with the band DOLLYman.

They were shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award in 2018 for their story 'To Belong To', which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4, read by Tobias Menzies.

Andrew occasionally appears as a presenter on BBC Radio 3's Hear and Now and has been a frequent guest on BBC Radio 3 and 4, including The Essay in 2018, and a guest mix for Late Junction in 2017.

They were the Chair of the Judges on BBC Young Musician 2018.