* Composer Sam Buttler’s new work will be premiered at the Eisteddfod's opening concert.
A talented young Welsh composer says it means the world to him to have his specially commissioned work provide a stunning fanfare to this year’s Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod along with musical legend Sir Karl Jenkins.
In its far-reaching new initiative, Harmony Without Borders, the Eisteddfod invited early-career composers born, living or studying in Wales to apply for a £6,000 paid commission, made possible thanks to significant support from the Arts Council of Wales, to create a six-minute bilingual work for choir and orchestra.
The piece, still under its working title of Greeting the Dawn, will receive its world premiere on Tuesday July 7 as part of the festival’s flagship opening concert, Uniting Nations: One World, a centrepiece of the 2026 artistic programme.
This special evening, featuring Sir Karl Jenkins conducting his own powerful work, One World, opens the festival with a message of unity, renewal and global collaboration.
The young composer selected by a panel of musical experts including Brian Hughes, Anthony Gabrielle and Tori Longdon, is 29-year-old Sam Buttler, originally from Cardiff, who has already made a significant impact on the world of music during his relatively short career. In 2024 he was the recipient of the 2024 Paul Mealor Award for Young Composers from the Welsh Music Guild.
He took part in the 2025 Composers Academy at the Cheltenham Festival, writing a new work for George Parris and The Carice Singers. He was also a member of the 2024 JAM on the Marsh Composer’s Residency, writing an opera based on the films of Derek Jarman with a libretto by Grahame Davies.
In 2024 he released his debut EP with Ensemble Matters, To the Waters and the Wild… for Pierrot Ensemble and in 2023 he was selected as part of the Peter Reynolds Composers Studio at the Vale of Glamorgan Festival, writing two new works for cello octet and violin and piano.
Sam was chosen as one of the six composers for Tŷ Cerdd’s CoDI Lead scheme, working closely with a quartet of musicians from Paraorchestra on a new work, Chariots, Death, Jewels, and the Moon, premiered in 2022. The same year he had his work Stones Have Memory Here featured as the BBC NOW Composition: Wales.
He is a keen music educator, having taught at secondary and higher education levels for the past seven years in composition and academic music. He has been a Graduate Teaching Assistant at King’s College, London since 2021 and specialises in helping people with composition and integrating it into their learning, as well as getting students to be confident in their music creation.
Sam started in music when he was just four years old, first playing the recorder then swapping to the oboe. He played in county orchestras and wind bands all the way through school and became a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Wales and the National Youth Wind Orchestra of Wales.
He went on study music at St Peter’s College, Oxford, where he was also a choral scholar and from where he graduated in 2017. He completed his Master’s in Composition at Royal Holloway and is currently in the final stages of his PhD in Music Composition at King’s College, London.
Speaking of how much it means to him that his newly-penned work will be premiered at such on auspicious occasion, a delighted Sam said: “It means the world. I’ve never had an opportunity on this scale and to not only open the festival, but to have my music alongside Sir Karl Jenkins’s - another Welsh oboist and composer - is something I don’t think I could have ever imagined.
“It means so much that my music will open the Eisteddfod, as so often the ‘new music’ is not given such a prominent spot. I can’t thank everyone involved enough.”
He added: “I’m still slightly in shock. Wales has such an incredible musical culture, and especially some brilliant composers. It’s easy to feel like no-one is hearing your musical voice, so to be selected from such a strong field is amazing.
“The spirit of the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod also really appealed to me. Music has the power to bring people together and can be a real force for good.”
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