A young man with a beard and short brown hair, sitting and looking at the camera, wearing a dark blue button-up shirt, against a gray background.

Hi, I’m Barnaby

I'm a novelist, video maker, and award-winning composer. My first novel was published in Spring 2025.

In 2025 my debut novel, The Quiet, was published by Pan Macmilan in the UK and the US. The book has been nominated for a 2026 McDermid debut award. The Winner will be announced at the opening ceremony of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival on Thursday 23 July 2026. Find out more here.

From 2019 to 2025 I made video essays on music for my YouTube channel, Listening In, gaining 250,000 subscribers and over 10 million views. I've made over 60 videos covering music from a wide spectrum of styles and genres. Film music became the backbone of Listening In, but I've also analysed classical, contemporary, and 20th Century music alongside music in art and literature as well as pop and rock songs.

As a composer, my pieces have been performed widely in the UK and internationally by groups including the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra of Opera North, the Ligeti Quartet and the choir of St Paul’s Cathedral. In 2018, my work for large orchestra, Quanta, was selected as the winner of the Toru Takemitsu Composition award and In 2017 and 2019, I received two nominations for national composing awards. The first was for my 45-minute cantata based on the story of the Temptations of Christ which was nominated for a BASCA British Composer Award, and the second was for my work for organ and electronics, Partials, which was nominated for an Ivors Composer Award.

barnaby@barnabymartin.com