“When listening to Simon Milton's work I feel I am listening to a fountain of abundant imagination and when I think I have heard it all, he surprises me with yet another moment of outstanding beauty that I am startled by the fact that here is a really young composer at work, because his music is so mature and skillful. His instrumentation is transparent and evocative, with wonderfully challenging writing for a soloist. If I were to find just a couple of words to describe Simon's music, "vibrant,  beautifully structured, engaging and with a sense of drama" would be the ones.”
  - Elena Kats-Chernin, Composer

‘Massenet’s luminous and silky Werther score had been reduced by Simon Milton…
was full of moments of Schumann, Chopin, Debussy:
the prelude to the duet at the end of Act I was pingingly impressionist.’
– Opera Now Nov/Dec 2005

Simon Milton was born in Penzance, Cornwall, in 1977. He graduated from the Welsh College of Music and Drama, obtaining a BA Hons, and studied composition with John Pickard. After winning the Cornish Young Composers Competition, 1999, Simon receives commissions from bands, orchestras, and soloists alike.

Recent performances include the world premiere of Sorbet! Sorbet! at the WEM11 festival, Var, France, in collaboration with Veronique Souberbielle, with a text by Bernard Turle, performed by Midsummer Opera. Fallen Idols (triptych for Tenor and Orchestra, with John Upperton, tenor soloist), Fanfare for Verdi Brass, and Tyranny of Distance (Essay for orchestra No.1), have all received first performances by the orchestra of Midsummer Opera, conducted by David Roblou. Michael Collins gave the first performance of Tivoli (a concertante work for Clarinet and String Orchestra with Piano and Bells), in April 2007 with the Southbank Sinfonia. 

Simon has also arranged the Brahms Piano Quintet for Piano and Winds (Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Horn, Bass Clarinet and Bassoon), and will published by June Emerson and recorded by the London Winds in the near future.

Michael Collins will giving the premiere of Simon’s arrangement of Mozart’s Concerto in E flat K 268, originally for Violin, with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields in Glasgow this November. 

Current projects include a clarinet concerto for Michael Collins, a Double Wind Quintet for the SouthBank Sinfonia, and following on from the success of Fallen Idols, a cantata for Tenor, Vocal Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra for John Upperton and the Orchestra and Chorus of Midsummer Opera. Simon will be collaborating with both Michael Collins and Midsummer Opera extensively over the next few years.

Simon is also a regular contributor for the Clarinet and Saxophone Society of Great Britain’s Quarterly Journal, with articles on Mark Anthony-Turnage’s Riffs and Refrains and Elena Kats-Chernin’s Ornamental Air.