A podcast featuring interviews with people who write music. How do composers start new pieces? How do they take an idea and develop into a work of art? In Remain Composed, we meet people writing different kinds of music, at different stages in their careers, to find out what influences them and how their processes work.
Jamie Serafi on choirs, Canada, short films and turtles
Jamie Serafi (https://jamieserafi.com/) is a film and TV composer based in Canada. He was born in England and talks about developing his portfolio while growing up in Cheshire and living in London for a time.
Jamie tells Remain Composed why he founded Cool Choir, a non-auditioned adult rock and pop choir. Jamie believes that anyone who can speak can sing. He took the concept with him when he moved to Canada.
Jamie explains the process behind writing the music for an oscar-nominated short film called Ave Maria.
Jamie also shares advice for budding composers including to write regularly, and don’t sit waiting around for perfect inspiration. He has thoughts on how composers can market themselves and diversify their careers.
17 Oct 2026
Mia Windsor on building her own instrument, organs and gnarly flat minor sevenths
Mia Windsor is a composer of experimental music. She’s currently completing a practice-led PhD project at the University of Leeds.
On this episode of Remain Composed, Mia describes the instrument she’s created called Muta. It involves creating and recording feedback loops, created using a variety of materials. It was developed through Mia’s exploration of instrumentalizing, the process of finding musical qualities in everyday objects.
Asked if she’d like others to have a go at Muta, Mia says that while she’d like others to try her practice, they may not enjoy playing it. She says the point of her practice is that individuals create their own instruments to do what they want.
Mia also explains how she’s used pipe organs to make more experimental music.
3 Oct 2026
David Önaç on Atlantic Requiem, slave ships, structure and improvisation and carnivals
David Önaç (https://www.composerdavidonac.com/) is a composer, pianist, director and educator. He’s on Remain Composed ahead of the premiere of his latest work for orchestra, choir and soloists. Atlantic Requiem will be performed in London on 11 October 2026.
David explains the purpose of the piece, which has been commissioned by the charity Culture& with support from Lloyds of London, the insurance company which has apologised for its historic role in insuring slave ships. The work is intended to memorialise the lost lives of enslaved Africans during the transatlantic trade of the 18th and 19th Centuries. And it aims to acknowledge the significant contribution of their descendants to transatlantic culture.
David discusses the emotional task of turning the idea for this piece into a reality, and explains why he decided to use only 10 notes throughout - 5 black and 5 white.
David describes how he balances the improvisatory nature of gospel, jazz and Caribbean influences with the structured elements of the more classical western traditions in his work.
Featured recording (https://soundcloud.com/user-989541767/01-four-etudes): This episode of Remain Composed includes a short section of Carnival from David Önaç’s Five Etudes for solo piano, originally composed as a group of four. It’s performed by the composer.
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