British-Austrian composer Noah Max’s output spans opera, orchestral and chamber music. In 2021 his string trio Sojourn won The Clements Prize and was performed by members of the Piatti Quartet at Conway Hall. His music has been performed at the Royal Festival Hall, Wigmore Hall and the Royal Albert Hall’s Elgar Room in London, as well as Vienna’s Musikverein, Altalena Festival in Budapest, Uilenburgersjoel Synagogue in Amsterdam and the Paderewski Academy in Poland. An excerpt from his String Quartet No. 4 was recently broadcast on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs.

Max recently spent five years bringing his debut opera A Child In Striped Pyjamas to the stage by special arrangement with Miramax, culminating in a sold-out premiere production at London’s Cockpit Theatre in January 2023. The opera was lauded by critics as ‘emotionally ambitious and vocally eloquent’ (The Telegraph) and ‘marvellously scored… a remarkable achievement for a young composer’ (The Arts Desk). Max was interviewed about the opera by The Sunday Times and BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, with excerpts from the piece also broadcast on RTÉ Radio. Further revivals of the production are planned for 2023/24 and beyond.

Max’s debut album Songs of Loneliness was released on Toccata Classics in 2022; this year he returns to the recording studio with the Tippett Quartet and Sir Michael Morpurgo. He is Composer-in-Residence at Thaxted Festival, where his String Quartet No. 2 was premiered by the Tippett Quartet in July 2023; the festival has since commissioned Symphony No. 1 to be premiered by the London Mozart Players on 21 June 2024. Max’s song cycle Rapture, based on the 2005 poetry collection by Carol Ann Duffy, receives its world premiere at Essex Book Festival/​Wild Arts Summer Opera Festival on 19 June 2024. Other upcoming projects include the world premiere of the cello concerto AXIOM on 26 June 2024 as part of Proms at St. Jude’s, performed by Echo Ensemble and conducted by Max. Echo Ensemble also gives a performance of Max’s Phantasy Quintet at Thaxted Festival on 30 June 2024.

With a creative life that embraces music and painting, poetry and cinema, Max enjoys illuminating the relationships between different mediums. As a conductor he has assisted Jonathan Cohen and Arcangelo at the BBC Proms and conducted Endymion Ensemble at Wigmore Hall. Max’s artworks have displayed at the National Portrait Gallery. His columns have been printed in The Irish Times, The Strad and The Jewish Chronicle; he has contributed to BBC Music Magazine and has been interviewed for Classical Music, Opera Today and BBC Radio 3’s In Tune.

Noah Max is published and managed worldwide by Birdsong, a HarrisonParrott associated company. His works up to 2023 are available from United Music Publishing. Get in touch here.

‘A high degree of textural inventiveness… marvellously scored… the vocal lines [are] athletic and colourful. Max himself conducted the performance with clarity and complete commitment. A remarkable achievement for a young composer… he is in the first stages of a notable career.’

Bernard Hughes, The Arts Desk ★ ★ ★ ★

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Photo © Richard Ecclestone