Hannah Kendall’s music has been widely celebrated, and in 2022 she was awarded the Hindemith Prize for outstanding contemporary composers. In 2023, she won the Ivor Novello Award for Best Large Ensemble Composition for shouting forever into the receiver commissioned by Südwestrundfunk for Ensemble Modern. Her 2016 chamber opera, The Knife of Dawn, received critical acclaim for its involving and claustrophobic representation of the incarceration of Guyanese political activist Martin Carter. A new production was presented on the Royal Opera House’s main stage in 2020. She has worked with ensembles such as BBC Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Modern, Klangforum Wien, LA Phil, London Sinfonietta, London Symphony Orchestra, and New York Philharmonic. Festival appearances include the BBC Proms, Berliner Festspiele, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Lucerne Festival, and Tanglewood Music Festival.

Born in London in 1984, Kendall read music at the University of Exeter before completing a master’s in advanced composition at the Royal College of Music and a doctorate at Columbia University in the City of New York. Her music is published by Ricordi (Berlin).