Creating both electronic and acoustic music, Sasha Scott has collaborated / been commissioned by artists and ensembles such as 12 Ensemble, Aurora Orchestra, Sean Shibe, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Beijing Music Festival, and Her Ensemble. In 2025 Sasha was one of eight composers selected for a place on the 2025 RPS Composers programme. This culminated in her writing a new piece, commissioned by the RPS, for 12 Ensemble. Read on to hear more about Sasha’s musical origins and creative process. You can listen and watch the premier of NIGHT OWL below.

 8 August 2025

I’m Sasha Scott, a composer, producer, and violinist born and based in London. In my practise I’m really drawn to creating music that blends organic and electronic elements, to form hybrid sound worlds that I want to feel emotive, hypnotic and consuming at times. I really enjoy writing music for different kinds of spaces, whether that’s orchestral and electro-acoustic works to solo electronic sets I perform live.

What was your first creative love?

I loved playing violin and piano, especially making up my own music. I started the violin at the age of four, and in the first few years of playing I had a deep connection to playing the instrument, but didn’t enjoy the process of practising; it felt restricted and pressured at times. My mother who was a piano teacher encouraged me to start improvising and taught me to play piano, and improvisation then became my outlet, it gave me a way to connect with music and express myself in a way that felt a lot more exciting and freeing. I also remember seeing my older brother write his GCSE compositions using notation software on his computer, and that inspired me to write for other instruments too. I didn’t know how to write music down at that point, so I’d input random notes just to see what happened, and until I heard something I liked.

What drives you to create?

What often drives me to create is the feeling of being really moved or excited by something. It could be watching a live gig, DJ set on YouTube, a film, or even a particular sound I hear somewhere. Anything that grabs my attention and shifts my emotions makes me want to sit down and write music to either emulate that feeling or sit in it for a while. I also feel like composing is a bit of a compulsion for me, I don’t feel like myself if I haven’t written music for a while, almost like I’ve been holding my breath. I tend to also feel most creative at night, that’s a part of the reason I named my piece Night Owl.

What have you had to unlearn on your artistic journey so far?

One of the biggest things I’ve had to unlearn is to worry and think too much about how my music will be perceived. I genuinely loved studying contemporary-classical composition, but I left my studies with this weird fear of writing a major chord. In academic settings, I sometimes felt like I had to prove my ideas were “complex” enough to be taken seriously. I started sound designing and sampling my own violin playing when I was about 16, after I came across electronic music albums such as Cosmogramma by Flying Lotus and Drukqs by Aphex Twin for the first time. I felt like I was being transported to another dimension, and hearing the endless possibilities of what sound could be drew me to want to create electronic sound worlds of my own. I didn’t feel the same pressure with my electronic music, maybe because it was something just for me and I kept it to myself for a while.

What was the process of creating Night Owl like? What were the experimentations, frustrations and successes?

Some of my favourite ways of writing for strings involve techniques I wasn’t formally encouraged to explore during classical violin training; like using different amounts of pressure on the strings and playing really close to the bridge, to create a sound that’s distorted, unstable and beautifully nasty. I wanted to lean into that approach in Night Owl, letting instinct and texture guide the piece more than traditional ideas of correctness or polish.

I started by creating a metallic, shudder-like electronic sample on my laptop, and then recorded myself on violin multiple times, focusing on feel and texture. I then layered those recordings, and rearranged them for string ensemble, aiming to create a silvery, grainy sound world.

I love writing dense, almost orchestral-like electronic textures, so one of the initial challenges was figuring out how to make the electronics and the ensemble feel like one unified sound, rather than competing elements. At the same time, I wanted moments where one would rise to the surface, almost like neon lights cutting through the dark.

When do you know a project is finished?

That’s a really tough question to answer because I feel like it can change from piece to piece. Usually it’s just an instinctive feeling, when it makes me feel the way I wanted it to feel, and I feel like I’ve said everything I wanted to say with the piece. But there have definitely been times where I’ve struggled to let go of a piece, or felt like something wasn’t quite working and kept tweaking it endlessly. At a certain point, I just have to pull the plug, otherwise I don’t think I’d ever leave my room.

What does collaboration mean to your practice?

Collaboration is really important to me in my practice. It’s such a gift to be able to hear musicians like 12 Ensemble interpret your ideas and bring their own unique energy to the music. I love how through those moments of exchange, you can discover new possibilities of sound and meaning. Working with 12 Ensemble was such a dream, I deeply admire their openness and their carefully crafted and innovative programming that champions new music alongside more established repertoire. I felt incredibly lucky to be able to write for them, and hearing the piece come to life for the first time was genuinely moving. As a composer, the process can be very solitary, so when it comes to sharing that work in a space with other musicians, it’s a needed reminder that creating music connects people and brings them together.

How do you nurture creativity outside of your work?

I really love going to raves, I have a deep love for the underground electronic music scene in London. There’s such a strong sense of community and a lot of love in those spaces, it’s where I feel most free, which resets my mind and opens me up creatively. I also find DJ sets so inspiring and fascinating in the way they structure sound and groove to make immediate physical and emotional reactions. It’s something I think about a lot when I’m writing. I love being in a space where there’s no hiding how you feel about the music; everything is expressed through dance and body language. It’s very different to your typical classical concert setting, where the audience are usually still and silent, and emotion is more hidden. When I’m listening through music I’m working on I’ll usually pace around my room or go on a walk listening to it in headphones, and even though I would say my style isn’t traditionally ‘dance-able’, if I don’t feel like I want to move at all I know something’s off.

What’s next for you?

My next piece is Sly, a 10 minute piece for the London Symphony Orchestra. It will be conducted by Maxime Pascal and premiered at the Barbican on the 20th of November 2025.