B I O G R A P H Y
Delia Stevens is a percussionist at the forefront of her generation: a pioneer of future-facing ideas, visionary of sound and generous collaborator with “burning chops and a cosmic imagination”.
"percussion from Delia Stevens, whose thoughtful, insistent playing is crucial”
The Guardian
"superb"
The Financial Times
"extraordinary..a joy to watch"
Classical Source
"real musicality"
The Daily Telegraph
"first-rate musicians..exhilarating..there deserves to be a special mention for percussionist Delia Stevens"
FRoots Magazine
Coming up in 2025
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Stevens & Pound Festivals: St. Magnus Festival in Orkney, Hay, Ulverston and Fishguard International Festivals plus FolkEast Festival in collaboration with author Robert Macfarlane
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Aurora Percussion Duo: China recital tour and new commission/recording from Roxanna Panufnik
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Ness: author Robert Macfarlane, singer Hayden Thorpe and Propellor Ensemble UK tour including King's Place, Glasshouse International Centre for Music, Birmingham Symphony Hall, Bristol Beacon, Liverpool Philharmonic and Krankenhaus Festival plus Song of Ness - a grand finale with orchestra and choir with musicians of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama at Milton Court, Barbican, London
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Terrains: hang drum with Portico Quartet at Philharmonie de Paris
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Creative Leader: National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and National Children's Orchestra of Great Britain
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Professor: New position at Leeds University as Senior Lecturer in Percussion
About
Delia Stevens is a percussionist, improviser and curator whose work reimagines classical music through bold cross-genre collaboration. A double Royal Over-Seas League winner and Associate of the Royal Northern College of Music, she’s known for transforming concert halls into boundary-defying spaces of conversation, imagination and change centred around the major issues of our time.
Following on from their debut with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and the Royal Northern College of Music Orchestras, Stevens & Pound - Delia’s duo with triple nominee for BBC Folk Musician of the Year and harmonica virtuoso Will Pound - collaborate with writer Robert Macfarlane (Spell Songs, Underland, The Lost Words) and the Britten Sinfonia at The Barbican’s Milton Court to present their climate-centred recomposition of Holst’s Planet Suite: The Silent Planet in January 2026.
This follows in the steps of Seasons for Change, commissioned and broadcast by Sky Arts Musical Masterpieces; Delia co-wrote a new double percussion and violin concerto with Sinfonia Cymru and Simmy Singh as a climate reimagination of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, which toured Wales in 2024.
2025 sees Delia give a recital tour of China’s major concert halls with the Aurora Percussion Duo, presenting Music for Pieces of Wood – a programme inspired by deforestation, devised only of percussion instruments and objects which derive from trees. She also tours with Robert Macfarlane and former Wild Beasts lead singer Hayden Thorpe’s Ness alongside Propellor Ensemble across the UK, beginning on the island of Orford Ness – a once cold war military testing site reclaimed by nature. The project culminates with Song of Ness at The Barbican’s Milton Court in Autumn with orchestra and choir in collaboration with the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Additionally, Delia has been Artist-in-Residence at the University of Leeds and The Glasshouse International Centre for Music presenting AlgoRhythms, exploring the role of AI in our lives through music, culminating in her being commissioned by BBC Radio 3 to curate and present her own series: Music and Machines.
As a soloist, she has toured Avner Dorman’s percussion concerto Frozen in Time with the Beethoven Academy Orchestra at the Prague Last Night of the Proms and the Lausitzer Philharmonie on tour across Germany, and appeared as a guest artist with the BBC Singers at the BBC Proms (Royal Albert Hall/BBC Radio 3) and the Royal Northern Sinfonia at the International Glasshouse Centre for Music.
Delia is the co-founder of the Aurora Percussion Duo and the world-folk collective Kabantu. Both groups have won the £10,000 Royal Over-Seas League Competition and have toured prolifically; from TedX Manchester and TedX Gateshead to the Queen Elizabeth Hall (Southbank Centre), Beijing's Forbidden Concert Hall, the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, Lucerne Festival, Luxembourg Philharmonie and Orkney, Cambridge, Shetland, Warwick, Broadstairs and Shrewsbury Folk Festivals.
Delia is a versatile musician working across classical, contemporary and improvisatory projects. In 2024 she opened the RPS Awards Ceremony alongside principal percussionists from the BBC Philharmonic, The Hallé and Manchester Camerata, toured Feldman’s Rothko Chapel with Manchester Collective across Europe and has appeared with the Mercury Prize-nominated Portico Quartet at Earth Hackney, Philharmonie de Paris, The Barbican and Elbphilharmonie Hamburg. She has recorded percussion for Channel 4’s The British Bake Off and has also performed alongside New Order, James, Tim Burgess (The Charlatans), Cathal Smyth (Madness), Gaz Coombes (Supergrass), Maddy Prior (Steel-Eye Span), Rae Morris, Daughter and Beth Orton.
Delia continues to shape the next generation of musicians as Creative Lead and curator for the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and as a regular Creative Tutor with the National Children’s Orchestra. She is an Associate of the Royal Northern College of Music, where she won the prestigious Gold Medal Competition for soloists and the Concerto Competition during her studies. She was previously Senior Lecturer in Reflective Practice and Head of Percussion at the Leeds Conservatoire for 3 years and currently teaches percussion at the University of Leeds.
