Biography
Lucy Railton, a British cellist, composer, and curator, explores the outer limits of electro-acoustic composition through her projects. Following completion of studies at the Royal Academy of Music, she contributed to dozens of recordings and appeared at festivals and venues devoted to contemporary music before issuing her first solo album, the 2018 release Paradise 94 on Modern Love, whose sound combined raw amplified cello with dense industrial noise.
She received training at both the New England Conservatory in Boston and the Royal Academy of Music in London, from which she graduated in 2008. That same year she launched the Kammer Klang new-music series and later helped establish the London Contemporary Music Festival, whose programs juxtapose established repertoire with works by emerging and lesser-known composers. Railton has appeared on albums by artists across jazz, folk, electronic, and indie rock, among them Bat for Lashes, Orbital, Bonobo, and Jamie Cullum, and has worked extensively in performance and recording with Thomas Strønen, Russell Haswell, Sofia Jernberg, and additional collaborators.
Modern Love issued her debut album Paradise 94 in 2018, featuring contributions from Beatrice Dillon and Kit Downes. She then partnered with Peter Zinovieff, co-founder of the EMS Synthesizer company, on RFG Inventions for Cello and Computer, which PAN released in February 2020. Three months afterward, her improvisational Lament in Three Parts appeared on Cafe Oto’s digital imprint TakuRoku. The composition Forma came out on Portraits GRM—a joint venture between the Austrian experimental label Editions Mego and the French electro-acoustic institution INA GRM—as one side of a split LP shared with Baltimore-based experimental musician Max Eilbacher. A 2010 performance of Louange à l’Éternité de Jésus by Oliver Messiaen was later issued by Modern Love as a benefit recording whose proceeds were divided between the UN Refugee Agency COVID-19 Appeal and the Grenfell Foundation.
She received training at both the New England Conservatory in Boston and the Royal Academy of Music in London, from which she graduated in 2008. That same year she launched the Kammer Klang new-music series and later helped establish the London Contemporary Music Festival, whose programs juxtapose established repertoire with works by emerging and lesser-known composers. Railton has appeared on albums by artists across jazz, folk, electronic, and indie rock, among them Bat for Lashes, Orbital, Bonobo, and Jamie Cullum, and has worked extensively in performance and recording with Thomas Strønen, Russell Haswell, Sofia Jernberg, and additional collaborators.
Modern Love issued her debut album Paradise 94 in 2018, featuring contributions from Beatrice Dillon and Kit Downes. She then partnered with Peter Zinovieff, co-founder of the EMS Synthesizer company, on RFG Inventions for Cello and Computer, which PAN released in February 2020. Three months afterward, her improvisational Lament in Three Parts appeared on Cafe Oto’s digital imprint TakuRoku. The composition Forma came out on Portraits GRM—a joint venture between the Austrian experimental label Editions Mego and the French electro-acoustic institution INA GRM—as one side of a split LP shared with Baltimore-based experimental musician Max Eilbacher. A 2010 performance of Louange à l’Éternité de Jésus by Oliver Messiaen was later issued by Modern Love as a benefit recording whose proceeds were divided between the UN Refugee Agency COVID-19 Appeal and the Grenfell Foundation.
Albums
Blue Veil
2025
J.S. Bach: Orgelbüchlein, BWV 599-644: Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 639 (Arr. Thomas)
2021
J.S. Bach: 6 Choräle von verschiedener Art, BWV 645-650: Ach bleib bei uns, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 649 (Arr. Thomas)
2021
False Positive (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
2021
Forma
2020
RFG Inventions for Cello and Computer
2020
Singles
