University of Huddersfield PhD scholar Bethan Morgan-Williams is celebrating after being awarded one of the most prestigious prizes in contemporary music.
Bethan is one of just three recipients of the Composer Prize of the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize 2026, for which she also receives €35,000 and a recording deal.
A composer and violinist, Bethan is the current recipient of the university’s Jonathan Harvey PhD Scholarship in Composition and teaches composition to first year music students at Huddersfield.
She has numerous awards and accolades, with the most recent being appointed an honorary Associate Member of the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) in 2025.
Bethan said: “When I found out, I was absolutely ecstatic and I could not believe it. It will bring some stability, which is incredibly valuable to artists.
“It is one of the awards in music that adds huge credibility, and I am also incredibly proud to be the first Welsh person to win it.”
Brought up in mid-Wales, Bethan attended Wells Cathedral School before subsequently studying at the RNCM and later at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague.
“When I was in The Hague, I met some ensembles that I am still working with now – most notably, Ensemble Musikfabrik,” added Bethan.
“They have been very supportive, and I doubt I would have received this prize if I had not worked with them in what turned out to be an important phase of my life.”
After a two-year spell in the Netherlands, Bethan returned to Wales before discovering the chance to study at the University of Huddersfield.
“I fancied the idea of coming to Huddersfield because of the amount of new music in the area, especially at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, so when I saw the chance of the scholarship I just thought: ‘Why not? Let’s go for it!’
“Everyone in the world of new music knows of Huddersfield, because of the work we do at the university and also because of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.
“I have recently collaborated with Richard Craig, a flautist from Glasgow, who performed my piece Whisht! at the Bangor Music Festival.
“I am also working with Lucy Humphris, one of the very few people in the UK who plays a double-bell trumpet – literally a trumpet with two bells, which allows you to produce two distinct timbres simultaneously, with the added possibility of exploring bi-directional effects.”
