The 2023 Tippett Medal is awarded to Timothy Cooper for his work Labyrinth. Timothy is a composer and performer of electroacoustic music, and teaches music technology at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Labyrinth is a piece for baroque cello and electronics, written in collaboration with Lucia Capellaro. The piece was composed for Cooper’s extended project ‘shadows that in darkness dwell’, exploring the music and life of John Dowland.

The judges were impressed with the “arresting and accomplished writing” of this “strikingly focused and assured” piece. They commented on the writing for both baroque cello and electronics as “finely controlled, with the dynamic and dramatic cello part surrounded by a wealth of fantastical granular and spectral resonances”. They also expressed the hope that the award of the Tippett Medal will mean that Labyrinth receives many more performances.