ABOUT DAVID
David's approved biographical, press, and social media information can be found below (and here).
Please do not change or alter any biographical information without prior permission.
David John Roche’s music is direct, determined, and loud (website here). Strongly influenced by heavy metal, lush orchestral music, and his working-class Welsh background, he has been marked out as a “clear-minded and class-conscious artist” (Culture Matters) and “one of the most energetic, driven, and successful of Wales’s millennial generation of composers” (Tŷ Cerdd). David’s work has been described as “a glorious confusion of rock and film music […] irresistible” (Stephen Walsh, The Arts Desk), “exquisite” (Adam Walton, BBC Introducing Wales), and praised for its “ingenious scoring” (Bernard Hughes, The Arts Desk) - David has also been complimented for “bravely” using “unusually specific melodic material in an excitingly direct way, with passages of intense expressive power” (Thomas Adès). His compositions have been broadcast, televised, and written about internationally to millions of people.
A string of international performances and commissions form the backbone of David’s work: BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, La Filharmonie, Zhejiang Symphony Orchestra, Brazilian National Orchestra, Tanglewood Music Center, Psappha Ensemble, Sinfonia Cymru, Britten Sinfonia, and the Solem Quartet, among others.
He has been shortlisted for the €100,000 Symphony Fufu Prize, twice shortlisted for ISCM World Music Days, and awarded Grand Prize in the ISB David Walter 2024 Composition Competition, First Prize in the Dante Moro Composition Award, Orion Orchestra and Dyson Composition Competition, and Dante 700 Composition Competition, Second Prize in the Tōru Takemitsu Composition Award, five prizes at the International Antonín Dvořák Award, and many more – to a total of more than 50 nominations. This also includes nominations by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the awarding of an AHRC Studentship at the University of Oxford, and receiving the Morfydd Owen Prize at Cardiff University, an Arts Council England Developing Your Creative Practice Grant, a Marchus Trust Grant, a Lithuanian Arts Council grant, and many more – his work is regularly and repeatedly funded through national and international creative partners.
Recent CD releases include HEARTBREAK for trumpet (Oscar Whight) and piano (Zeynep Özsuca) on Willowhayne Records, described by the British Music Society as “slow and sorrowful […] the trumpet playing enters with a genuine depth of feeling”, with Gramophone noting “fragility is brought to the surface”. For Alex, performed by Gerard Cousins, was released on Prima Classic, receiving over 300,000 streams since its release, and The Harp of Wales for solo guitar, performed by the composer, was released on NMC Recordings. David’s Waves of Love ("Immediately attractive – one might even say catchy [...] a piece of engaging charm" - Seen and Heard International, “It could only ever be a concert opener [...] tangy and harmonically pleasing” - Buzz Magazine) is featured part of the BBC’s Digital Concert Series and, during 2024, his arrangement of John Metcalf’s Calm (“The music itself breathed a sublimity that was beautiful in the extreme.” – Buzz Magazine) was broadcast on 3 different BBC Radio 3 programmes.
In 2024, David’s first symphony was commissioned by Tŷ Cerdd, Arts Council Wales, and Aberystwyth University - premiering to sold-out audiences - and his second was commissioned by County Hall Arts (where it was also nominated for the €100,000 Symphony Fufu Prize). The same year, Sinfonia Cymru and Britten Sinfonia co-commissioned and toured his Chorus in Alto - a hybrid classical/electric guitar concerto for Grammy-nominated Sean Shibe, receiving performances and coverage on BBC Radio 3 In Concert, BBC Radio Wales Arts Show, BBC Radio 3, and BBC Radio Cymru. Of the work, The Guardian stated that “rhythmic patterns always defied expectation” and that it was “a vibrantly energetic conclusion”, Seen and Heard International stated that Chorus in Alto was “an impressive close to the concert” where “the rhythmic drive had most of the audience tapping a foot or involving themselves in the rhythm in some way”. Towards the end of 2025, Theatr Soar - with support from the National Lottery Heritage Foundation and Tŷ Cerdd - commissioned, filmed, and recorded David’s 30-minute work for metal band and heritage organ (premiered by the composer, metal band De’Lour, and organist George Herbert), and - as Composer-in-Residence with CoMA London – David wrote and performed his own electric guitar concerto THE CURSE OF THE BEDROOM GUITARIST.
So far in 2025, David has had the awesome privilege of completing many newly-commissioned works; a fresh arrangement of Beethoven's Violin Concerto, toured by Sinfonia Cymru and Hyeyoon Park; a new work for antiphonal brass band and orchestra toured by Britten Sinfonia with Thundersley Brass Band, Soham Comrades Brass Band, and Stamford Brass Band – performing to sold-out cathedral audiences across England; a new commission from the International Guitar Foundation, performed and toured by Wales Guitar Duo; a new guitar quartet for National Youth Guitar Ensemble (who also toured it in England and Wales); a new large chamber ensemble work for Uproar Ensemble (toured across Wales and featured on BBC Radio); and multiple international performances. He is currently working on an exciting string of newly-commissioned works, academic talks, scholarships, and presentations including a newly-commissioned open-score work for The Dementia Trust and Nantwen Ensemble, a talk for the UK Department for Education, a presentation at the Royal Musical Association’s Composer-Performer Collaboration Study Group at the Royal Academy of Music, and a week long-research study as part of a Sara Richards and Joseph Boughey Scholarship at Gladstone’s Library – all taking place over the course of 2025/2026.
David grew up in Tredegar, South Wales. He studied at the universities of Cardiff, Oxford, and Cambridge (winning numerous prizes and awards). Following the completion of his doctorate - he spent several years studying with John Metcalf MBE. David competed in the Pokémon UK Championships when he was 10, an event so important to his identity that he lists it at the end of his professional biography 25 years later.