Edward Tait ▪ Composer
Edward Tait is a British composer, currently residing in London. He is studying Composition at the Royal Academy of Music, under the tutelage of Gareth Moorcraft and Louise Drewett. He recently won first-prize in the Composition category of the Berlioz International Music Competition in September 2024. A number of his works are published by NoteWelder Music, including his solo violin suite Triptych, and several of his solo piano arrangements, such as Holst’s The Planets and Debussy’s Nocturnes. Current projects include a commission from Lloyds Choir, for an upcoming concert in December, and a symphonic tone poem, inspired by native American folklore.
Since being granted a UK Music and Dance Scheme Scholarship to The Purcell School of Music in 2017, he has studied with acclaimed composers Deborah Pritchard, Brian Elias and Jacques Cohen. He has had a number of orchestral works performed by the Purcell Symphony Orchestra, including Trireme (2019) and Mo Li Hua (2022). Most recently, his orchestral work Fleeting Manhattan was conducted by Nicholas Daniel, alongside both the Purcell School and Orion Orchestras, receving its premiere at St. John’s Smith Square in February 2024. Fleeting Manhattan went on to be shortlisted in the European Recording Orchestra’s 2024 Call for Scores.
Edward has had countless performances in-and-around London, including premieres of two of his compositions at Hatfield House, in October 2019 and September 2022. He has won prizes at a number of well-respected composition competitions, such as the North London Festival, Chesham Arts Festival and Benslow Music Trust. In March 2023, Edward was fortunate to have his arrangement of Waltzing Matilda performed at Westminster Abbey, at the pre-service to the Commonwealth Day. More recently, his collaborative work Rhapsody for Sextet has been performed numerous times by the London Sinfonietta in 2024, as part of their ‘Sound Out Schools’ outreach project. He has also had his music performed by the Carducci Quartet, Amersham Concert Club, Kucharsky Quartet, and the Chorleywood Orchestra, who premiered another of his orchestral works Crenark Hill in March 2024.
An active musical entrepreneur, he has organized dozens of concerts at the Purcell School and Amersham Free Church. These concerts have seen the premieres of works like Fantasia-Elegy for clarinet, Herbstlied for solo piano, and several settings of Shakespeare songs, for voices. He is an active member of the Chorleywood Orchestra, as a Percussionist, as well as a regular member of the Chorleywood Choral Society. He has also been active as a conductor, serving as the music director of the Purcell School’s award-winning outreach trip IMPULSE in 2023, as well as conducting the chamber ensemble Philomel during 2023 and 2024. Upon graduating from Purcell in 2024, Edward was awarded the Tim Stevenson Prize for Outstanding Composition, for his compositional and entrepreneurial work throughout his time at the school.
On top of his concert music, Edward has also written film and electronic music, most notably re-scoring the 1902 silent film Le Voyage dans la Lune, by Georges Melies. He has also done plenty of arranging work, having produced the first complete arrangement of Holst’s The Planets suite, for solo piano, which was premiered in 2023. He is currently in the process of producing a similar arrangement of Debussy’s Trois Nocturnes.
Edward has a sideline career building professional websites for individuals and small businesses, having formerly been a Senior Partner at EYP Websites, the web development firm. He also founded the online debating platform CounterU, which is still currently in development. Additionally, he directed his first film Amersham Summer, which was released in November 2024, as part of an ongoing film series accompanied by musical improvisations. He writes the artistic blog At Home with the Craft.
In his free time, Edward enjoys creative writing, reading, cycling, running and playing football, and he is a member of the RAM Football Club.
Chorleywood Orchestra
April 6th 2025
Venue TBA
Brahms Symphony No. 1
Woodside Summer Recital: Students of the Royal Academy of Music
4pm ▪ June 22nd 2025
Free Church, Amersham (UK)
‘Le Jardin Féerique’ from Ravel Mother Goose Suite
Chorleywood Orchestra
July 6th 2025
Venue TBA
Beethoven Symphony No. 3 ‘Eroica’
Sibelius Karelia Suite
Edward’s cello octet Ecstasio, performed in a workshop by the Royal Academy of Music.
Premiere of Fleeting Manhattan at St John’s Smith Square, conducted by Nicholas Daniel.
Classical Commissions:
Commissioning of new music for any instrument or voice, including opera and ballet, to solo, chamber and orchestral works.
Film & Games Scores:
Original soundtracks for short and feature films, television shows, documentaries, and games, all according to commission.
Music Teaching:
Offering one-to-one lessons in Piano, Theory & Composition, including GCSE and A-Level, locally in the Chilterns and nearby. Available for slots of 30 minutes, 45 minutes or an hour, and able to come round to houses to teach. Can be found through agency MusicTeacher.com or through direct message.
Website Development:
Building professional websites for individuals and small businesses, on-demand, relating to any industry, product or service. Either just the one-off charge for building the website, or an additional monthly charge for regular maintenance and updates, based on the number of hours required.
Arranging & Copyist Work:
Offering skills in using the music notation software Sibelius, including the typing up of music from handwritten scores, and re-arranging music for any instrument or group of instruments.
Concert Management:
Freelance independent concert managing, including planning, managing, scheduling and booking, with much experience in that field. Additionally, extra concert business services can also be provided, through his concert team, including poster and programme design, stewarding, stage management, filming, audio recording and video editing.
Contact Edward through the links to his email, phone or Instagram:
Email - edwardtait06@outlook.com
Phone - 07523 996306
Instagram - @ta.ity06
Symphonic Transcriptions
Edward and several other composers are in the ongoing process of re-imagining and arranging the greatest orchestral works for the accessibility and convenience of the solo piano. They plan to have concerts roughly twice a year, with one concert having already taken place in December 2023, featuring Edward's arrangement of The Planets suite by Gustav Holst, the first of its kind.
Composers Parallels
Music by one of the great well-known composers is performed, alongside new pieces which have been strongly influenced by this composer in different ways. A recent pairing was the chamber music of Dmitri Shostakovich with two new chamber works by Edward Tait and Antonia Zadrag, near the end of their time at the Purcell School. The next leg of the project, called the Triple Sonata, will be performed later in 2025, and will feature music by Edward Tait, Samuel Kemp and Jacques Cohen, alongside that of J. S. Bach.
ImprovForty
After experimenting with large-scale improvisation in his film Amersham Summer, Edward initiated a project, in which he recorded a new improvisation every day on the piano, for 40 days straight, with the aim of improving his pianistic fluency over that time. Other young musicians were inspired by this, and began their own branches of the project, such as Edward Harris-Brown's ImprovFifty, following a similar model to the original. Tait himself followed his original series with a spin-off, called ImprovFlicks, where he would record improvisations to scenes from classic films, weekly, and upload them to his YouTube channel.