With a deeply felt social conscience and a nimble approach to violin that resembles the playing of a lively rhythm guitar, composer Anna Phoebe puts a contemporary spin on classical crossover. Born in Germany in 1981, Phoebe moved around before settling in Manchester and later Glasgow with her family. She started playing violin at age seven and later studied at the London School of Economics. In the mid-2000s, she cut her teeth doing session work, breaking through by touring with the symphonic hard-rock troupe Trans-Siberian Orchestra. That rock-leaning influence permeated her early solo albums, such as 2008’s aggressive Rise of the Warrior, although later work features a more expansive way of weaving together violin and other music. Phoebe and composer/pianist Aisling Brouwer collaborate as AVAWAVES, whose meditative work has touched on Brexit, and she was commissioned by the European Space Agency to write music centred on data related to climate change. The cinematic 2021 collection Sea Souls, meanwhile, uses tranquil, bittersweet violin melodies to ruminate on natural oceanic beauty and our place in the world.