LEMISA Composition Debuts · Meet the composers
Lize Briel
South African composer
Featured composition
Textured Thought
Wind Sextet
Composer · Flautist
Stellenbosch, South Africa
Education
BMus (cum laude) · MMus (cum laude)
About the composer
Lize Briel is an internationally award-winning composer known for work in film, installation, and contemporary concert music. Based in Stellenbosch, South Africa, she is drawn to themes of environment and identity, and often integrates African instruments into her compositions.
Lize won the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra Composers’ Award in 2024, becoming the first woman composer to win a South African composition prize and earning the position of CPO composer-in-residence for 2024–2025. Her work Echoes was performed in Hamburg, Germany, in April 2024.
Her compositions have also received international recognition. In 2025, she placed in the top five in Africa in the European Recording Orchestra Call-for-Scores. In 2023, she received third prize in the international #CreateCOP28 art competition with ArtPartner for work addressing societal issues. Her composition Ocean Soundscape was showcased at the United Nations Headquarters in New York in December 2023.