Britta Byström was born in Sundsvall 1977 and began her musical career as a trumpet player. In her teens, she began to compose music and studied composition at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm 1995-2001.
Byström has composed for most sizes of orchestras and contexts including chamber music, vocal music and opera, but the emphasis has been on orchestral music. Some of those who have performed her music are the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Gürzenich Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. She has written pieces directly for soloists such as Malin Broman, Rick Stotijn, Radovan Vlatkovic and Janine Jansen.
In 2014, the viola concerto A Walk After Dark received the da capo -prize at the Brandenburger Biennale, Germany. In 2016, Byström was named winner of the American ”Elaine Lebenbom Memorial Award for Female Composers”. The song cycle Notes From the City of the Sun was selected as one of ten ”recommended works” at the International Rostrum For Composers 2019.
Parallel Universes, a piece commissioned by BBC to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Royal Albert Hall, was first performed at a Prom concert in August 2021 with BBC Philharmonic and conductor John Storgårds.
Since 2016, Britta Byström is a member of The Royal Swedish Academy of Music.
