Music Makes Lives Better: Sample Library

We spoke to composers Thomas Shorthouse and Molly Frances Arnuk about their upcoming concert, Sample Library, the blurred lines between classical music and production, and why creating spaces for people to make music matters.

Credit: Thomas's headshot by Sisi Burn; Molly's headshot by Kit McCarthy.

There's a moment near the beginning of any conversation with Thomas and Molly where you realise they've spent a lot of time working together. They finish each other's sentences, gently correct each other's details, and move easily between humour and focus on their craft. Together, the two composers are building a curatorial project in London centred around strong ideas, thoughtful programming and welcoming people into contemporary music.

Their next event, Sample Library, takes place on 17 June at Avalon Café in London, bringing classical performance and music production into the same room. Proceeds from the concert will support Yorkshire Youth and Music's work, supporting young people with access to the studio.

Ask them about how they write music, and they both reach for metaphor. 'If Molly is weaving things together,' Thomas says, 'I'm smashing Play-Doh together and mixing all the colours.' Molly laughs. It's not quite as chaotic as that, she says, but the comparison captures something important; Molly's compositions often draw on systems and patterns: braids, weaving structures, bell-ringing sequences, all used as frameworks for generating and reorganising musical material. 'It's crunching numbers,' she says. 'And then eventually it's really rewarding to see a piece emerge. But the process of working through it is almost the point.' One recent piece uses a nine-strand pattern from a mechanised braiding machine used to make fishing line. The reference isn't audible when you hear the music, but for Molly that connection matters: the research, histories and physical materials behind the work give it weight and purpose.

Credit: Kit McCarthy.

Thomas's approach moves fluidly between worlds, drawing on shoegaze, folk and pop as readily as contemporary classical techniques. He describes starting a new piece like premixing paint: working out what colours you have before anything goes on the canvas. 'I know what shade of red I've made,' he says, 'and I chose it intentionally.' Their collaborative work, Bellsbellsbells, brings both approaches together: Thomas began with recordings of bells, transcribed their rhythms and analysed their frequencies, before Molly reorganised the material using traditional bell-ringing patterns. The finished piece includes actual bells attached to the violist. This piece will be released in January 2027 at the project launch as part of a collaborative studio album.

The idea behind Sample Library grew from conversations about how composers and producers are often doing very similar things, even when the language around them differs. 'Olivier Messiaen transcribes birdsong: Danny L Harle samples it. It's basically the same thing,' says Molly. The concert explores that overlap directly, tracing where sounds come from, how they are transformed, and what happens when different musical traditions share space. Maggie Vaz Neto, whose work moves between opera and contemporary performance, will perform alongside guitarist-composer Saurabh Shivakumar, whose practice spans jazz and classical music, and solo and collaborative pianists Alfredo van de Munt and Geneviene Liew. Electronic musicians Delyth Field and Ozgur Kaya will create live responses using recordings taken during rehearsals: a genuine sample library, built collaboratively in real time. There's also a premiere from Willem Buurman, written specifically to be sampled and transformed during the performance, and an arrangement of de Falla's Homenaje for electric guitar and pedalboard effects. 'Sacrilege,' Molly says, tongue in cheek, with Thomas responding, 'But that's okay. We're not afraid of sacrilege, I don't think.'

Credit: Kit McCarthy.

For Thomas, the project also reflects his own musical journey. Growing up in Pontefract, he first accessed music through Wakefield Music Services before finding his way into live music through venues like Brudenell Social Club and The Piece Hall. He came to classical composition through those wider experiences and has never quite understood why genre boundaries feel so fixed. 'Classical music can sometimes be a bit isolating,' he says, 'when really we're all just people interested in different pockets of music.' Molly's route was different: trained as a violist in New York, she found herself searching for creative community during and after the pandemic before London gave her both. 'I suddenly felt like a real composer,' she says, then catches herself. Thomas raises an eyebrow. 'Whatever "real composer" means.'

When deciding who to support through Sample Library, they wanted the partnership to connect naturally to the concert's themes: access, creativity and giving people the tools to make things. Yorkshire Youth & Music felt like the right fit straight away. For Thomas, the connection was personal. Alongside composing, he works in music production, and it was YY&M's Safe Space Studio that caught his attention first. 'It wasn't music appreciation in the abstract,' he says. 'It was young people making things: sitting at a desk, using equipment, making decisions and hearing their ideas take shape.' Through projects like Safe Space Studio, Yorkshire Youth and Music supports young people across the region to access music-making in ways that work for them: from instrumental tuition to production, recording and creative technology. As someone who left West Yorkshire partly to find those opportunities himself, Thomas understands how significant those spaces can be. 'Funding and access to music is a really difficult conversation,' he says. 'And a scary one. It's important that people are still having it.'

Both composers were drawn to YY&M's focus on the individual rather than genre, outcome or technical ability: giving people a space to make things, and to benefit from making. Molly has been working with socially engaged music programmes through her studies at Guildhall and found herself reminded of something easy to lose sight of in professional practice. 'When music becomes your job, and people take it really seriously, you can forget how much it actually connects people,' she says, 'How special it can be.' Thomas nods. 'It connects you back to why you started in the first place.'

For Thomas, composing often feels like giving shape to something he couldn't otherwise explain: 'you write something and suddenly realise — that's exactly how I've been feeling, I just didn't understand it before.' For Molly, it's always been rooted in togetherness: the chamber rehearsals, the orchestras, the collaborative spaces that eventually led her towards composition itself. Writing for people, writing with people. 'Music is great,' she says, with a self-aware grin. 'I know that sounds silly.' It doesn't sound silly at all.

Sample Library takes place this June at Avalon Café in London. Proceeds from ticket sales will support Yorkshire Youth and Music and our work with young people across Yorkshire.

Credit: Kit McCarthy.

Find the Full Sample Library Programme: 

Philip the wanderer, ii. Broadly, surveilling the great expanse — Cassandra Miller Alfredo van de Munt, piano

Homenaje — Manuel de Falla, arr. Arnuk & Shorthouse Saurabh Shivakumar, electric guitar

Ariodante, scene xi: recit & arioso — George Frideric Handel Maggie Vaz Neto, soprano Geneviene Liew, piano

Improvisation on de Falla and Handel Delyth Field & Ozgur Kaya, electronics

Reel (ii) — Willem Buurman *world premiere Maggie Vaz Neto, soprano Saurabh Shivakumar, electric guitar Geneviene Liew, piano

Petites esquisses d'oiseaux, v. "le rouge gorge" — Olivier Messiaen Alfredo van de Munt, piano

Improvisation on Buurman and Messiaen Delyth Field & Ozgur Kaya, electronics

Golden thread, lifeboat — Molly Frances Arnuk Saurabh Shivakumar, electric guitar Geneviene Liew, piano

After the programme, there will be a DJ set from maiyanaya.

Sample Library takes place this June at Avalon Café in London. Proceeds from ticket sales will support Yorkshire Youth and Music and our work with young people across Yorkshire.

All previous concert photography, including banner image and Molly Frances Arnuk headshot by Kit McCarthy. Thomas Shorthouse headshot by Sisi Burn.