Samuel Messer (b. 1988) is a composer of contemporary concert music. Sam graduated with a Masters in Music from Canterbury Christ Church University in 2011, having completed an undergraduate degree there in 2010 – throughout this time his tutor was Roderick Watkins. In recent years his work has begun to explore questions of musical narrative & listener expectation, in particular the possibility for distorting an audible ‘structural line’ (as can be heard in cold light, a 2015 work for string quartet). He is currently undertaking PhD study at Royal Holloway, University of London, where his supervisor is Mark Bowden, and has studied privately with Matthew King (Guildhall School of Music & Drama) since 2014.