Oscar Bettison's work demonstrates a willingness to work within and outside the confines of concert music. He likes to work with what he calls cinderella instruments, either by making percussion instruments (in the case of Junk) or by re-imagining other instruments (Krank, Cibola) as well as writing for instruments more common in rock music. More recent pieces have featured some electro-acoustic elements. His latest work O Death is concerned with bringing all these strands together.

Oscar Bettison was born in Jersey, UK. After studying in London with Simon Bainbridge and Robert Saxton he went to the Koninklijk Conservatorium in The Hague where he studied with Louis Andriessen. He was awarded a fellowship to attend Tanglewood in summer 2001 and is currently finishing his PhD at Princeton University where his advisor is Steve Mackey. He was a fellow at the Aspen Music Festival in the summer of 2007.

Successes include winning the 1993/4 Lloyds Bank/BBC Young Composer of the Year award and the 1997 Royal Philharmonic Society prize. He has received commissions from the New London Orchestra, the Oxford Contemporary Music Festival, The New London Children's Choir, a BBC commission, the Eliza Miller Dance Company and a work for the London Sinfonietta to commemorate their 30th birthday. A CD that includes a recent piece of his, Cadence, was released in 2001 on NMC Records.

Oscar Bettison is published by Boosey & Hawkes .