Dr Anna Appleby

I am a composer specialising in opera and ballet, with a parallel life as a performer of electronic and alternative pop music. Collaboration has often been at the heart of my creative practice. My PhD was centred around composing an opera with a poet in partnership with the BBC Philharmonic, and later ended up evolving into a multimedia research project during the pandemic, leading to the creation of both an opera for singers and orchestra, and a sort of online digital Gesamtkunstwerk embodied by my alter-ego, Norrisette. 

Opera has been a major focus in my career so far. The opera that I composed in collaboration with 3 other composers at Glyndebourne for GYO and Psappha, Pay the Piper, won 'Best Opera for Young Audiences' at the international YAM Awards in 2022. My most recent piece, Ghost, is an electronica-opera about the life experiences of queer, neurodivergent women. I was rehearsal director and co-producer for my chamber opera-ballet Citizens of Nowhere in 2016/17 and my opera Drought with the BBC Philharmonic in 2022. Both operas involved close collaboration with soprano and mezzo-soprano student singers at RNCM over the course of a year, in which I adapted the work to students' voices while challenging them to learn new techniques. I have collaborated with world-class dance artists such as multi-award-winning choreographer Dane Hurst, with whom I made Citizens of Nowhere. My experiments in electronic music began at Rambert while creating immersive outdoor installations for the National Theatre River Stage with Carolyn Bolton and the roof of the Southbank Centre with Julie Cunningham and Company.

I often work with the arts in a community and educational setting. I have facilitated co-creation and composition workshops with English Touring Opera (2023) and Young Sinfonia (2023). I was Manchester composer in residence with Streetwise Opera (2016/17), for whom I have composed again since, and my work with them featured in US documentary 'Turning Point' in Autumn 2017. I have also been the artist in residence with two different youth ensembles based at the Glasshouse International Centre for Music in the North East, where I was born. I have wide experience as a performing arts specialist in primary schools, a private composition and music theory tutor in Manchester and at international summer schools, a workshop leader with young people and adults of all ages, and as an artistic mentor. 

Norrisette is the moniker under which I write, record, perform and produce electronic music and contemporary songs. Norrisette was born in 2020 and has since performed a solo set on the Nebula stage at Bluedot Festival and numerous headline shows in Manchester, as well as supporting Anna Meredith with the RNCM Festival Orchestra at Manchester International Festival, being featured on BBC 6 Music, and starting a regular music night in collaboration with Industries called FLUFF which is a platform for queer electronic artists. FLUFF was featured in the Guardian for its role in the underground music scene in Manchester.

In 2024 I was awarded the title of Associate Artist of the Royal Northern College of Music. I also have a first-class degree in Music from the University of Oxford, where I chose to study at St Hilda's College due to its feminist and musical history. One of my proudest creative achievements so far is that I have composed pieces that community and leisure-time ensembles have chosen to perform multiple times of their own accord, for their enjoyment of the music. When I was growing up in Newcastle, I was lucky enough to benefit from a wide artistic education including instrumental tuition, and am passionate about improving access to music and the arts for all.