Zygmund de Somogyi is a British-Filipino composer, interdisciplinary artist, and music journalist.
Drawing from their punk rock background and DIY ethics, their music “beguiles with its wit, emotional openness, and sonic imagination” (I CARE IF YOU LISTEN) across contemporary classical, opera, theatre, film, and electronic music. Their recent works have explored themes of digital folklore, collaborative worldbuilding, queer identity, metamodern aesthetics, and contradictory recontextualisations of genre and form.
Their second opera URSA MINOR, created with librettist Alexia Peniguel, was premiered to sold-out audiences in June 2024 by Guildhall Opera Department and Dominic Wheeler, in association with the Royal Ballet & Opera. Their debut opera hikikomori!, commissioned by Opera in Oborne, was performed in April 2022 in Oborne, Dorset, under the direction and mentorship of Susanna Stranders.
Zygmund’s music has received performances across the UK, continental Europe, North America, and Asia. They were a Royal Philharmonic Society composer of 2025, who commissioned their trio IN THE EVENT THAT YOU STAY for Temporal Harmonies, Inc., performing at Wigmore Hall and Harpa, Reykjavik. Recent accolades include a Fromm Foundation Composer Fellowship (2023), and commissions for the Composers Conference, Gaudeamus Screendive, Access Contemporary Music Chicago, and Opera in Oborne, among others. Notable collaborators include conductors Vimbayi Kaziboni and Dominic Wheeler, ensembles Salastina, KOE Duo, and Psappha, and soloists Lydia Walquist, Fenella Humphreys, and Mahan Esfahani. Upcoming projects for 2026 include a “punk-rock cabaret opera” with librettist David Bottomley, commissions for àktapha and the Jasmine Quartet, and a new song cycle for soprano Hannah Dienes-Williams.
Multi-disciplinary collaboration is at the forefront of Zygmund’s compositional practice. As a sound designer for theatre, their work featured in productions at Chichester Festival Theatre, Brighton Dome, and Assembly Roxy (Edinburgh Fringe); they were Associate Composer with theatre organisation mushmoss collective from 2022-24, creating and facilitating experimental, interactive theatre across London. Their work for media also features in projects with Watford FC, ThinkTank Planetarium, and YouTube channel Rare Earth, the latter of which exposed their music to over 700,000 viewers.
Alongside composition, Zygmund has served as artistic director and editor of contemporary music magazine PRXLUDES since 2020; alongside creative director Patrick Ellis, they have interviewed over 150 composers and music organisations from the UK and around the world. They also work as a freelance music journalist, having contributed articles to VAN Magazine, I CARE IF YOU LISTEN, and What is Metamodern?.
Zygmund graduated with an MMus in Composition from Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in 2021, studying with Ed Bennett, Edwin Roxburgh, and Howard Skempton; and with an MA in Opera Making and Writing from Guildhall School of Music and Drama, studying with Toby Young and Nazli Tabatabai-Khatambakhsh, supported by the Guildhall School Trust, where they were subsequently a Junior Fellow from 2024-25, researching metamodern aesthetics in composition. Other notable mentors include Derrick Skye, Zeena Parkins, Joe Cutler, and Harriet Wybor.
Outside of contemporary music, they’re an avid punk rock fan, songwriting and performing in punk quartet Trouble Sleeping.
