Duncan MacLeod is an award-winning composer and sound artist whose practice spans both acoustic and electronic forces.

His output includes concert music, sound installations, music for stage, and participatory arts, drawing inspiration from a wide range of sources such as art, folklore, and environmental and socio-political issues.

Duncan’s work has been commissioned, commercially recorded, and broadcast internationally by a range of ensembles and soloists, including the Arditti Quartet, Jane Chapman, Fretwork, Galvanize Ensemble, Juice Vocal Trio, London Sinfonietta, Musarc, Orkest de Volharding, Piano Circus, and Quatuor Diotima. His music has been performed at major festivals such as Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Spitalfields Festival, Gaudeamus Music Week (Netherlands), Sonorities, Sound, and Bang on a Can Marathon (New York), and at prominent venues including The Muziekgebouw (Netherlands), Walt Disney Concert Hall (USA), Café OTO, nonclassical, Sadler's Wells, Southbank Centre, Tate Modern, and Kings Place. Duncan has received coveted awards and participated in prestigious residencies both in the UK and abroad, including Acanthes, Aldeburgh, Banff Centre, Cove Park, i-Park, IRCAM, and June in Buffalo.

A recent focus of Duncan’s work is placemaking and digital storytelling through interactive soundwalks, which explore new ways of investigating place, identity, and community through sound. In partnership with Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum and Arts Centre, he has secured funding to lead an interdisciplinary, cross-institutional team in the development of a series of prototype soundwalks. Utilising geo-locative audio technology, these soundwalks respond to Uist's natural environment and cultural heritage, combining music, sound art, field recordings, and creatively reimagined archival recordings held by the National Archives. To date, these prototypes have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Radiophrenia, and Resonance FM, and in 2023 were nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for Best Sound Art.

Duncan studied composition with John Woolrich and Nye Parry at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. He continued with postgraduate studies in composition and Sonology at the Royal Conservatoire in the Netherlands under the tutelage of Louis Andriessen, Clarence Barlow, and Martijn Padding. He completed his PhD in composition at Trinity Laban Conservatoire and the University of Kent under the supervision of Michael Finnissy.

Duncan is currently Associate Professor of Music Composition at the University of Nottingham and Artistic Director of the Nottingham Forum for Artistic Research (NottFAR).