Joe Stollery is a composer originally from central Aberdeenshire. He graduated from the University of Aberdeen with BMus (Hons) (2015), MMus in Composition (2016) and PhD in Composition (2024).

He has written for a wide variety of ensembles, mostly instrumental, but also including art songs and a handful of chamber operas. His musical interests and appreciations cover a wide range (including non-classical), and as such his compositional aesthetic stands somewhere between common-practice and the avant-garde. He is also keen on putting dramatic statements into his music and is inclined towards a theatrical element in many of his instrumental works.

He was twice a finalist in the Carlaw-Ogston Composition Award (2015 & 2016), has participated as an observer at the Cheltenham Festival (2016), and has been commissioned by the Aberdeenshire Youth Orchestra, the Geneva-based wind band Harmonie Nautique, Orchestra of St John’s, Aberdeenshire Saxophone Orchestra (where he is an Associate Composer), Cappella Nova, Any Enemy and Hebrides Ensemble, amongst others. He was also commissioned by the soundfestival and the Silver Cities Stories project for his opera Mither Kirk (2017) and has collaborated with Scottish Opera to produce Nature’s House (2014), as part of a Leverhulme scholarship. His first opera The Maiden Stone (2014), based on an Aberdeenshire legend, was given its premiere outdoors at the foot of the hill Bennachie, where the story was set. He also composed a set of three children’s operas that were performed in primary schools around Aberdeen in February 2019. He recently collaborated with violist Katherine Wren and composer Pete Stollery on Nordic VIola’s A Wing and a Prayer - Deeside and completed a commission for left-hand alone pianist Nicholas McCarthy.

As well as composing, Joe also plays alto saxophone in the Concert Band and Saxophone Ensemble at Aberdeen University, and is a confident pianist.

Being autistic, he has spoken publicly in many forums about his condition and how it relates to his music including at the University of Aberdeen, as a guest speaker at the Neurotribes Conference in 2021 and interviewed by Kate Molleson on Radio 3’s Music Matters.

His personal interests lie in a wide variety of sources, many of which stream into his music. These include the local environment and its history, nature (particularly animals), myths and legends, especially mythical creatures, and the supernatural. He is particularly interested in fantastical concepts and would often speculate on these things in his music, usually by finding and making connections with real-world affairs.