Bobbie-Jane Gardner is a UK-based composer whose music explores the harmonic richness and emotional directness of Black musical traditions, particularly 60s and 70s soul, R&B and jazz, in dialogue with contemporary experimental practice. Her work centres harmonic colour, density and orchestral texture, treating harmony as a primary expressive force. Drawing on the expansive sensibility often associated with “baroque soul,” she is interested in how popular music’s harmonic language can inhabit experimental and symphonic forms, creating spaces where lushness, restraint and abstraction coexist.
She has been commissioned by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Spitalfields Music, Onyx Brass, Persona Arts, Punch Records, The Stringcredibles, G Plus Ensemble, Vivid Projects and Wild Plum Arts. A keen arranger, Bobbie-Jane has created bespoke arrangements for the BBC Concert Orchestra, Netflix and is currently arranging a new work for the Danish National Symphony Orchestra.
Her work has been performed by ensembles including the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Psappha, the Bozzini Quartet, City of London Sinfonia and Ethereal World. Bobbie’s music has been performed at festivals such as the Cheltenham Music Festival, Frontiers Festival and the London Jazz Festival.
Alongside her creative work, Gardner is a Lecturer in Composition and researcher at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.