Home | Molly Frances Arnuk

Molly Frances Arnuk is a London-based composer from New York who describes her music as minimal and often process-based. She is interested in the properties of patterning as applied to sound, and has a body of work which uses braids to reorder musical material ('How To Choose a Park Bench', 'Be Always', 'frozen, leaping', 'a rainbow electrifies the sky and dies'). More recently, she has explored using binary from overlaying knitting patterns ('pulling woolfibre from my fingertips'), theorised structures of ancient sewn boats ('golden thread, lifeboat') and bell ringing patterns ('Bellsbellsbells', co-composed with Thomas Shorthouse) to process, order, and change musical material. Molly spoke about her use of patterning in an interview for the Novemebr 2025 issue of prxludes.

Accessibility is also central to Molly's compositional practice, having researched how performers of varying backgrounds and abilities access new music notation. In recent projects, she has used colour to indicate performance parameters and explored the role of verbal instruction and aural score material. Molly looks forward to upcoming projects interrogating the artistic implications of accessing determinate music through only aural score material, for example the sliding, slightly delayed language of playing by ear.

Molly graduated in 2025 with a first-class Bachelor of Music degree in composition at the Royal College of Music, where she was grateful to be a Big Give Scholar. She studied under professors Haris Kittos and Catherine Kontz and received additional mentorship in lessons and masterclasses with Michael Finnissy, Dani Howard, Helen Grime, Jenni Watson, George Lewis, and Nicola LeFanu. In September 2026 Molly began studying for a Master of Music in composition at Guildhall School of Music and Drama with professors Laurence Crane and Sylvia Lim, where she is supported with a Guildhall School scholarship.

As the 2025 winner of the OpusHER Award, Molly was commissioned by EMPOWER Women Changing Music to write a trio for flute, oboe, and piano. 'Abstraction' was performed that March at King’s Place, the Royal Albert Hall’s Elgar Room, the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, and the Royal Irish Academy of Music, and published by Tetractys. Her fixed media piece titled 'Windcasting', which manipulates recordings of her playing viola to resemble windchimes, was shortly after installed in Kew Gardens for the 2025 Sound of Blossom Festival.

In spring of 2025, Molly worked with the Jasmine Quartet to complete and premiere her string quartet, 'Continuing', the first two movements of which were developed the year prior with the Ficino Ensemble Quartet at the Irish Composition Summer School, the Fiora Quartet for the Royal College of Music String Quartet Platform, and the Quiron Quartet at Guimaraes Festival. Molly looks forward to further collaboration with the Jasmine Quartet, including the recording of 'Continuing' and a new work in summer 2026.

Molly is a keen collaborator across disciplines. In December 2025 she saw the premiere of 'Game-- with pieces, rules, and players' at The Place, which was composed with choreographer Esther Bedeau and performed by students of London Contemporary Dance School. She had previously worked with the English National Ballet School, composing 'Unspinning' for their 2023 Young Choreographers Showcase at The Wallace Collection and working closely with student dancer-choreographers Adèle Roulmann and Abigail Fletcher.

She has also worked with visual artist Nico Raic, composing 'Sierpén: SEQUENCE 1183' in response to his painting for the release of Chromatic Code, an audiovisual calendar distributed by the City Museum in Czestochowa. Other collaborators include librettists David Bottomley, with whom she wrote 'a rainbow electrifies the sky and dies' for The Figura Singers, and Ariella Stoian with 'I've never seen an eel in my life' for singer Niamh Kearney. In late 2025, Molly co-wrote a piece for prepared solo viola, titled 'Bellsbellsbells' with fellow composer Thomas Shorthouse.

In 2023, Molly worked with the Centre for Performance Science at the Royal College of Music to develop a piece for the opening of their new Performance Simulator, which she used to alter the acoustics of the room between sections of the piece. 'it is it is it' was premiered in a public workshop in the 2024 RCM Conducting Festival.

In addition to composing, Molly is passionate about concert curation. She programmed a concert of music for voice, viola, and piano for St Mary Le Strand's 2023 Contemporary Music Series, in which she was a featured composer. More recently, Molly has hosted a series of concerts with Thomas Shorthouse, including a programme exploring internet culture as referenced in new music at the RCM Museum in November 2025 and a concert premiering their collaboratively composed music for solo strings in January 2026 at St Mary Aldermary.