Mark Simpson

Who is Mark Simpson?

Mark Simpson is a British clarinettist from Liverpool, who won the BBC Young Musician of the Year 2006 title on 20 May 2006, playing Nielsen's Clarinet Concerto with the Northern Sinfonia and Yan Pascal Tortelier at The Sage Gateshead. In the same year, Simpson was also the winner of the BBC Young Composer of the Year competition, becoming the only person in history to have ever won both competitions. He resides in Merseyside and attended King David High School, Liverpool before attending the Royal Northern College of Music junior department where he studied clarinet with Nicolas Cox. He was also Principal Clarinet in the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, playing a Peter Eaton clarinet. After a term at the Royal College of Music, Simpson spent the rest of his gap year in Berlin, and attended St. Catherine's College, Oxford University reading for a BA in Music from 2008-2011.

He is a composer, who was commissioned by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain to write his first orchestral piece, Threads for Orchestra, which premièred at The Sage Gateshead on 1 April 2008.