Kate Whitley is a composer and pianist. She runs The Multi-Story Orchestra, which performs in car parks around the UK: “forget fusty concert halls, the future of music is emerging in a municipal car park” (The Times). She writes music for orchestras, choirs and instrumentalists. Her music has been broadcast on Radio 3 and performed as part of the BBC Proms. 

Her pieces for choir and orchestra include Alive to words by poet Holly McNish, which won a 2015 British Composers Award and was described as “a remarkable feat” (The Telegraph), and I am I say to words by Sabrina Mahfouz: “a tremendous work” (The Times). Her piece Speak Out to words by Nobel prize winner Malala Yousafzai was commissioned by the BBC for International Women’s Day 2017 in support of the campaign for better education for girls: ‘a powerful statement, full of kinetic energy’ (Wales Arts Review) and has been performed by orchestras around the world. 

In 2018, she wrote Sky Dances for the London Symphony Orchestra, which was performed by an orchestra of over 100 in Trafalgar Square conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. Winning a 2018 Critics Circle Award, she has been described as a composer with “a strong, distinctive voice who, without compromising, communicates directly to a wide audience, within the concert hall and beyond.”