Ruth Lee is an award-winning composer and harpist currently based in Sheffield and Lincolnshire. Frequently driven by narratives, sometimes found and at other times self-created, she has been described as a ‘musical storyteller’ with ‘her own inner voice’ (Sioned Williams, UKHA Review). Winner of the Sioned Williams Harp Prize at the United Kingdom Harp Competition, the Iain Macleòid Young Composer Award at the Edinburgh International Harp Festival and the Wales International Harp Festival Competition for Composition, her work has been recognised at many of the leading festivals across the UK, and internationally, at the World Harp Congress in Cardiff, 2022 and in the Semi-Finals of the World Harp Competition 2024. She is a graduate of the University of York (First-Class BA Hons. Music 2019) where she was awarded The Wilfrid Mellers Prize for Music.

 

Interested in history, mythology, nature and anthropology, she primarily explores acoustic and electro-acoustic music in solo and chamber settings; incorporating loop machines, ambient noise and extended techniques to create a unique sound world. Her compositional output from traditional western notation to graphic scores based on photography and in-situ sketches. 

 

Her writing has been workshopped and performed by various soloists and ensembles, including Lore Lixenberg (Krummholz: for voice and prepared harp), The Hermes Experiment (The Night With… Call for Scores 2019), The Chimera Ensemble, and other international artists through collaboration with The Arc Project. With the kind support of Salvi Harps, she premiered ‘Reimagined’, a multimedia concert featuring original and contemporary works for electric harp and chamber ensemble, performed by her all-female trio ‘Phantasia’.

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Much of her compositional output includes the pedal harp or clarsach, and, for which she is currently developing her first solo album. Other accolades include Winner of the Iain Macleòid Young Composer Award, First Prize at The Future Blend Project, First Prize at the Wales Harp Composition Competition, Winner of the Open (under 25s) category at the East Coast Musician of the Year, and she was selected by the United Kingdom Harp Association as an Emerging Artist of 2020-2021.