Stephen Goss (born 2 February 1964) is a Welsh composer, guitarist and academic. His compositional output includes orchestral and choral works, chamber music, and solo pieces. His music draws freely on a number of styles and genres. He is particularly known for his guitar music, which is widely performed and recorded.
As of 2026, he is Professor of Composition in the School of Arts, Humanities, and Creative Industries at the University of Surrey. He is also a professor of guitar at the Royal Academy of Music in London and the director of the International Guitar Research Centre, which he founded with John Williams and Milton Mermikides in 2014. Before moving to the University of Surrey in 1999, he taught at the Yehudi Menuhin School.
Goss studied at the Royal Academy of Music (where he won the Julian Bream Prize in 1986) and the Universities of Bristol and London (where he completed his doctorate in 1997). His composition teachers were Edward Gregson, Robert Saxton, Peter Dickinson and Anthony Payne, and he studied guitar with Michael Lewin. He has been nominated for an Ivor Novello Award, and is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music.
Compositions
Goss's work has included several projects with the guitarist John Williams, who recorded and toured his Guitar Concerto (2012) with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 2014.Soundboard Vol. 40 No. 3 pp48-50 www.guitarfoundation.org Goss has collaborated with artists as diverse as Andrew Lloyd Webber, Alt-J, and Avi Avital. In his role as composer-in-residence for the Orpheus Sinfonia, he wrote the Concerto for Five (2013) for the combination of violin, saxophone, cello, bass, piano and orchestra, and the Piano Concerto (Signum Classics 2013) - the first classical concert piece to feature an interactive tablet app.The Independent 2 April 2013, News p19
Orchestras which have performed his music include The Russian National Orchestra (under Mikhail Pletnev), The China National Symphony Orchestra, The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the State Symphony Orchestra 'New Russia', The RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, The Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, The Scottish Chamber Orchestra, BBC NOW, The National Symphony Orchestra of Colombia, The Oregon Symphony Orchestra. His Albéniz Concerto (2009) for guitar and orchestra was released on EMI Classics in November 2010.The Albéniz Concerto, a 'new' Romantic Concerto, Classical Guitar Magazine, January 2011 Goss wrote the first ever Theorbo Concerto, which was released on the Deux-Elles label in 2019.
Other commissions have come from: guitarists, David Russell, Xuefei Yang, Zoran Dukić and Miloš Karadaglić, the percussionist Evelyn Glennie, violinist Nicola Benedetti, flautist William Bennett, pianist Emmanuel Despax, and the tenor Ian Bostridge. Most of his music is published by Doberman Editions, Quebec, Canada.
Musical language
A central theme running through Goss's work is the evocation of time (nostalgia and historical reference) and place (landscape and architecture). His uses of quotations and stylistic references help to shape his pluralist musical language, which is characterised by abrupt stylistic gear changes. As Kimberly Patterson has observed, ‘Goss’s compositional interests are in the continuum that lies between transcription and composition and in the ways in which pre-existing material can be used to create unusual and interesting music’.Soundboard Vol. 41 No. 4 pp. 8-15 guitarfoundation.org Goss doesn't see ‘interpretation, transcription, arrangement, improvisation, and composition as different things with distinct boundaries between them.’ He suggests that ‘the distinctions can be useful, but they are artificial… rather like the colours of the rainbow’.Soundboard Vol. 39 No. 3 pp. 30-34 www.guitarfoundation.org Jonathan Leathwood has proposed that Goss ‘denies traditional expectations of originality’ and that ‘the listener is drawn into a maze of referents’.
An interest in music and landscape dates back to two collaborations with Charles Jencks, The Garden of Cosmic Speculation (2005) (which was featured on the South Bank Show) and Frozen Music (2006) (commissioned for the opening season of the Menuhin Hall). Through these and later projects, Goss has developed ways of balancing literal and metaphorical representations of landscape, architecture, and sculpture in music.
While Goss's influences can be traced in the work of many musicians (for example, Beethoven, Mahler, Stravinsky, John Adams, Georg Rochberg, Miles Davis, Uri Caine, John Zorn, and Frank Zappa), his compositional approach owes as much to literature and the visual arts – James Joyce, Umberto Eco, Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges, Gerhard Richter, Grayson Perry, Terry Gilliam, and Thomas Heatherwick. The strong literary connection in the music has been pointed out by Leathwood, who states that ‘there can be little doubt that Stephen Goss intends to provoke, among other things, thought in the form of words - verbal association and a kind of wordplay encoded in the music; not symbolism, but semiosis in the literary sense that modern thought has tended to give it, an interest in music as text’.
Performance
As a guitarist, Stephen Goss has worked with many leading composers (such as Toru Takemitsu, Hans Werner Henze, Peter Maxwell Davies and Elliott Carter) and has toured and recorded extensively with the Tetra Guitar Quartet and other ensembles. He has recorded more than 20 CDs as a soloist and chamber musician and has given recitals in Europe, North and South America, and Asia. He has performed alongside Paco Peña and John Williams and has played concertos with orchestras such as the Bournemouth Sinfonietta and the English Sinfonia.
Selected list of compositions
Orchestral, choral and large ensemble
Wynwood Walls (for guitar, strings, and percussion, or guitar and string quartet) 2022 Doberman 1526 Landscape and Memory (for two guitars and strings) 2022 Doberman 1483 La Serenissima (for viollin and strings, or violin and string quartet) 2022 Doberman 1503 Koblenz Concerto (for two guitars and orchestra) 2019 Doberman 1343 The Vine-fruit Carol (for SATB choir and two guitars) 2018 Doberman 1277 Theorbo Concerto (for theorbo and strings) 2018 Doberman 1311 A Concerto of Colours (for guitar and wind ensemble) 2017 Doberman 1156 Invisible Cities (for violin, guitar, strings, and percussion) 2017 Doberman 1470 Carnival of Venice (for guitar and orchestra) 2017 The Paganini Concerto (for guitar and orchestra) 2014 Doberman 1323 Concerto for Five (for violin, saxophones, cello, piano, double bass and orchestra) 2013 Piano Concerto (for piano and orchestra) 2013 Guitar Concerto (for guitar and orchestra) 2012 Doberman 910 Songs of the Solar System (for SSA choir, unison choir, and harp) 2012 Doberman 1302 The Shard (for large orchestra) 2011 Doberman 895 The Albéniz Concerto (for guitar and orchestra) 2009 Doberman 887 Cottleston Pie (for SSAATTBB choir) 2001 Arcadia (for nineteen solo strings) 1996 Dreamchild (for soprano and large ensemble) 1995 Saviour of the World (for SATB choir and organ) 1992 Hymnen an die Nacht (for soprano solo, baritone solo and orchestra) 1985
Chamber music
Paganini Variations (for violin, mandolin, and guitar) 2923 Crunch Time (for viola, bass clarinet, and piano) 2019 Doberman 1495 The Garden of Cosmic Speculation (version for violin, viola, cello and piano) 2004/2016 Doberman 1055 The Flower of Cities (for violin, two guitars, double bass, and percussion) 2012 Doberman 852 Northern Lights (for flute, bass clarinet doubling B flat clarinet and optional soprano saxophone, and guitar) 2010 Doberman 969 Reflections on the Garden of Cosmic Speculation (for flute doubling piccolo & alto flute, bass clarinet doubling C clarinet and soprano saxophone, and guitar) 2010 Variations on a Burns Air: Scherzo (for piano quartet) 2009 Prelude and Gnossienne (for cello, piano and double bass) 2008 Uneasy Dreams (for saxophone quartet) 2006 Doberman 1054 Frozen Music (for guitar, violin, viola and cello) 2006 Doberman 872 Drums and Trumpets (for six trumpets and timpani) 2005 The Garden of Cosmic Speculation (for violin, cello, bass clarinet and piano) 2004 Doberman 1048 Tango: The White Queen (for violin, bandoneon, guitar, piano and double bass) 2003 Spin (for six dancers, flute, soprano saxophone, piano, guitar, sitar, video and electronics) 2003 Trumpets and Clocks (for four trumpets, two trombones and timpani) 2002 One-Nil (for brass quintet) 1994
Duos and solos
Fantasia (for bandoneon and guitar) 2026 The Big Apple Coaster (for cello and guitar) 2025 Welsh Folksongs - set 2 (for flute and guitar) 2025 Ophelia's Garden (for two Renaissance 8-course lute) 2025 Preludes of Postludes (for cello and guitar) 2024 Doberman 1616 La Catedral Sumergida (for flute and guitar) 2024 Doberman 1535 Paganini Variations (for violin and guitar) 2023 Doberman 1532 Intermezzi (for fortepiano and romantic guitar) 2022 Doberman 1462 Dialogues from Invisible Cities (2022) Doberman 1456 Exhalation (for organ) 2021 Doberman 1454 The Lake of Time (for marimba and theorbo) 2020 Doberman 1455 Motherlands (for soprano saxophone, or viola, and guitar) 2019 Doberman 1280 Still Life (for cello and guitar) 2018 Doberman 1299 Songs of Ophelia (for soprano and guitar) 2016 Doberman 1116 The Miller's Tale (for solo theorbo) 2015 Doberman 1079 The Book of Songs (for tenor and guitar) 2014 Doberman 986 River Winds (for violin and piano) 2011 Doberman 983 Caught Between (for cello and piano) 2011 Doberman 968 The Sea of the Edge (for solo flute) 2010 Doberman 890 American Pastoral (for violin and guitar) 2010 Doberman 952 The Autumn Song II (for cello or flute and piano) 2010 Doberman 891 The Autumn Song (for cello or flute and guitar) 2009 Doberman 873 Welsh Folksongs (for voice and guitar) 2008 Doberman 989 Welsh Folksongs (for melodic instrument and guitar) 2008 Doberman 981 From Honey to Ashes (for flute and guitar) 2007 Doberman 1000 Dark Knights and Holy Fools (for percussion and guitar) 2006 Doberman 953 Park of Idols (for cello and guitar) 2005 Doberman 871 Gymnopédies after Erik Satie (for flute and piano) 2003 First Milonga, Last Tango (for flute and guitar) 2002 Doberman 875 Under Milk Wood Songs (for soprano and guitar) 1990 Doberman 894 Six Inventions (for solo cello) 1986
Multiple guitars
Five Step Tango (for three guitars and baritone guitar) 2025 Wessex Wyverns (for solo flute, solo guitar, and two guitar ensembles) 2025 Doberman 1633 Aphorisms (for two guitars) 2024 Doberman 1581 Joni (for three guitars and baritone guitar) 2022 Cocktail List (for two guitars) 2022 Doberman 1451 River Fragments (for two guitars) 2020 Doberman 1471 Tarot (for four guitars and percussion) 2019 Doberman 1393 Canción y Joropo (for four guitars) 2019 Doberman 1612 Minimal Effort (for guitar orchestra) 2018 Doberman 1308 Cantigas de Santiago (arranged for three guitars by Richard Wright) 2017 Doberman 1217 Talking Drums (for two guitars) 2016 Doberman 1155 Mahler Lieder (for four guitars) 2011 Doberman 845 Still the Sea (for two guitars) 2009 Les Productions d’Oz 2260 Welsh Folksongs (for two guitars) 2008 Doberman 981 The Raw and the Cooked (for two guitars) 2004 Doberman 874 Gnossiennes after Erik Satie (for four guitars) 2002 Doberman 947 Lachrymae (for four guitars) 2001 Doberman 892 Carmen Fantasy (for four guitars) 1998 Doberman Tempo of Three Quartered (for three eight-part guitar orchestras) 1993 Under Milk Wood Variations (for four guitars and optional narrator) 1989 Editions Orphée 494-02831
Solo guitar
Don Quixote 2025 The Alchemist 2024 Pierrot, or Harlequin? 2023 Doberman 1555 Miami Beach 2023 Doberman 1519 Winterbourne Preludes 2022 Doberman 1473 Hiraeth 2020 Doberman 1374 Perpetual Motion Machine 2020 Doberman 1395 Happy Sad 2020 Verismo 2020 Doberman 1442 Bagatelles with Fantasies 2020 Doberman 1362 Threnody 2019 Marco Tamayo Editions MAG 0012