Rebecca Saunders (born 19 December 1967) is an English composer. She lives and works as a freelance composer in Berlin.
Born in London, Saunders studied violin and composition at the University of Edinburgh, earning a PhD in Composition in 1997. As a DAAD scholar, she studied with Wolfgang Rihm from 1991 to 1994 at the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe; Nigel Osborne supervised her doctoral thesis.
Her awards include the Busoni Prize of the Berlin Academy of the Arts, the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize for composition, the Paul Hindemith Prize of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, and the composition prize of the ARD. In 2010 and 2012, she taught at the Darmstadt International Summer Courses and was composer-in-residence at the Konzerthaus Dortmund from 2005-2006,Staatskapelle Dresden from 2009-2010, and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in 2010.
Fabio Luisi and the Staatskapelle Dresden gave the UK premiere of Saunders' revision of traces at the 2009 Proms.