Josephine Stephenson

Josephine Stephenson (born 1990) is a French-British composer, arranger, singer and instrumentalist who works across a variety of musical genres. Early life and education Stephenson learned cello and piano as a child, and as a teenager attended the Maîtrise de Radio France (the choir school of Radio France). After briefly studying philosophy at the Sorbonne University in Paris, she moved to the UK where she attended Clare College, University of Cambridge as a choral scholar and received a Bachelor of Music degree. She later obtained a master’s degree in composition from the Royal College of Music, having studied under Kenneth Hesketh. In 2017-2019 she was a ‘Writing The Future’ composer with the London Sinfonietta. Career During her master’s studies, Stephenson’s orchestration was likened to Claude Vivier, and her first short opera On False Perspective was staged in the Britten Theatre, co-produced by Tête à Tête and the Royal College of Music. In 2015 she collaborated with FellSwoop Theatre on a devised piece of musical theatre, Ghost Opera, first performed at the Aix-en-Provence Festival and developed with The Lowry. In the same year she won ‘Best Composer’ at Underwire Film Fest