Artist Profile: Edward Tait
Edward Tait is a London-based composer, whose music has been performed across the United Kingdom, Ireland and the United States, by ensembles like the London Sinfonietta, Carducci Quartet and Orion Orchestra. He is currently collaborating with the Arquia Duo on recording his song cycle Vectis, based on poems by Mollie Mardel. In November, he will receive his debut broadcast on BBC Radio 3, following success in the NCEM Young Composer Award.
Edward studies at the Royal Academy of Music with Gareth Moorcraft and Louise Drewett, and he is artistic director of the MetroLand Music Festival.
Catalogue of Works
Selected recordings are publicly available.
Skip to bottom of page to view published scores!
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Rolling the Sun (2026)
for solo piano
Duration: circ. 3 minutes
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Shostakovich March from Children's Notebook (2026)
arrangement for orchestra
Duration: circ. 1 minute
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Vectis Tableau I (2026)
for solo organ
Duration: circ. 13 minutes
Premiere: Isle of Wight, 2026Click here to listen to a recording.
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Pastorale (2026)
for bassoon/cello & piano
Duration: circ. 4 minutes
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Sarcasm (2026)
for viola & piano
Duration: circ. 3 minutes
Premiere: Guildhall School of Music and Drama, 2026Click here to listen to a recording.
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Snapshot (2026)
for solo viola
Duration: circ. 5 minutes
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Fanfare on the A String (2026)
for string trio
Duration: circ. 4 minutes
Premiere: Guildhall School of Music and Drama, 2026Click here to listen to a recording.
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Cloches (2026)
for solo piano
Duration: circ. 14 minutes
Premiere: St Paul's Church Clapham, 20262. Agitato
3. Ecstacic
4. Toccata
Programme Notes for the 5th movement:
The fifth and final piece in my suite Cloches was composed for Sakina Karbalai, a friend of mine, who could only the play with her right hand, so as a result, the piece is written for just the right hand. It’s built around a two rotating cycles of pitches, which are heard simultaneously, as the piece is built almost entirely out of trills and hand-crossing patterns, which allow multiple harmonic progressions to occur at once. The additional accents throughout help emphasise a lot of these harmonic changes, which is in fact a common feature throughout all five of the movements from the rest of the suite.
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Whisper (2026)
for solo flute
Duration: circ. 1 minute
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Rachmaninov Bogoroditse Devo (2026)
arrangement for cello quartet
Duration: circ. 3 minutes
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Ashes Beneath the Ice (2026)
for cello & piano
Duration: circ. 7 minutes
Premiere: Leighton House, Holland Park, 2026Click here to listen to a recording.
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Dovetail (2026)
graphic score for flute, clarinet & cello
Duration: circ. 3 minutes
Premiere: Royal Academy of Music, 2026 -
Fanfares of Dawn & Dusk (2026)
for oboe & electronics
Duration: circ. 6 minutes
Premiere: Royal Academy of Music, 2026Click here to listen to a recording.
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my troubled sense doth move (2026)
for soprano, cornett & harpsichord
Duration: circ. 4 minutes
Premiere: National Centre for Early Music, York, 2026Click here to listen to a recording.
Scored for soprano, cornett and harpsichord, my setting of Lady Mary Wroth's In this strange labyrinth attempts to mirror the tone of the text with a nuanced blend of inward optimism and deep ambience and often slight mystery. There is a recognisable repetitive motif heard mostly in the cornett, which appears in various different guises, and is also passed between the soprano and cornett periodically, as if a sort of cry for help or sincerity.
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Atkinsongs (2026)
for 3 basses & piano
Duration: circ. 2 minutes
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Variation on Sumer is i-cumen in (2026)
for solo bassoon
Duration: circ. 2 minutes
Premiere: Purcell School of Music, 2026Click here to listen to a recording.
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Satie Le Piccadilly (2026)
arrangement for bassoon & string quartet
Duration: circ. 3 minutes
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Five Baroque Fugues (2026)
for solo piano
Duration: circ. 8 minutes
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Prokofiev Visions Fugitives (2026)
arrangement for chamber orchestra
Duration: circ. 6 minutes
Premiere: Royal Academy of Music, 2026Click here to listen to a recording.
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Commuting Phases (2025)
improvised soundtrack for solo piano
Duration: circ. 10 minutes
Click here to watch.
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Don Oíche Úd i mBeithil (2025)
arrangement for soprano, violin & cello
Duration: circ. 4 minutes
Premiere: Wexford, 2025 -
Symphony No. 1 (2025)
Duration: circ. 35 minutes
Premiere: Royal Academy of Music, 20251. Allegretto
2. Lento "View from Church Stretton
3. Fugue
4. Fanfare
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Movement from Composers Parallels (2025)
for violin, viola & piano
Duration: circ. 4 minutes
Premiere: Purcell School of Music, 2026 -
Orage (2025)
for solo piano
Duration: circ. 5 minutes
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Engineer's Paradise (2025)
for four-hand piano
Duration: circ. 5 minutes
Premiere: Royal Academy of Music, 2025Click here to purchase the score
Click here to listen to a recording.
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Pulsating (2025)
for flute and guitar
Duration: circ. 7 minutes
Premiere: Royal Academy of Music, 2025Click here to purchase the score
Click here to listen to a recording.
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Four Miniatures for Alto Flute (2025)
Duration: circ. 6 minutes
Click here to listen to a recording.
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Elegy (2025)
for six-hand piano
Duration: circ. 12 minutes
Premiere: St Alkmund's Church, Shrewsbury, 2025Click here to listen to a recording.
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Peter Pan (2025)
for orchestra
Duration: circ. 29 minutes
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Family Mix-Up (2025)
for oboe & piano
Duration: circ. 5 minutes
Premiere: London Transport Museum, 2025Click here to listen to a recording.
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Shifting (2025)
for string trio
Duration: circ. 3 minutes
Premiere: Churchill College, University of Cambridge, 2025Click here to listen to a recording.
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Solo Clarinet Sonata (2025)
Duration: circ. 8 minutes
Premiere: Charlton St Luke's Sunday Series, 2026Click here to purchase the score
Click here to listen to a recording.
Programme Notes:
My Solo Clarinet Sonata was one of my most enjoyable pieces to compose, as the instrument allows so much versatility and scope for exploration. This was inspired in part by a shorter solo clarinet piece which I wrote a few months prior, so I decided to take my interest in clarinet writing even further. In particular, I made a conscious effort to start relying a lot more on pure instinct and natural progression, after recent suggestion from my old composition teacher, from a few years back, Brian Elias. Its distinctive structure is one I use quite a lot, opening with a slow introduction, before a drive towards a mini climax, before retreating back to its slow tempo. From there, the piece suddenly jolts into a much quicker tempo, building up slowly and steadily to a substantial climax at the end.
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Ballade (2025)
for violin & piano
Duration: circ. 9 minutes
Premiere: MetroLand Music Festival, 2026Click here to listen to a recording.
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Bullseye! (2025)
for solo piano
Duration: circ. 1 minute
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The Story of Music (2025)
for mixed quartet
Duration: circ. 4 minutes
Premiere: Royal Academy of Music, 2025 -
Fruhlingslied (2025)
for solo piano
Duration: circ. 3 minutes
Premiere: MetroLand Music Festival, 2026Click here to listen to a recording.
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Reverie (2025)
for solo harp
Duration: circ. 4 minutes
Premiere: Royal Academy of Music, 2025Click here to listen to a recording.
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Three Purcell Intermezzi (2025)
for solo piano
Duration: circ. 9 minutes
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Bartok Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs (2025)
arrangement for chamber orchestra
Duration: circ. 8 minutes
Premiere: Royal Academy of Music, 2025Click here to listen to a recording.
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Minuet or Trio? (2025)
for 2 violins, cello & harpsichord
Duration: circ. 4 minutes
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Ignited (2025)
for solo bassoon
Duration: circ. 4 minutes
Premiere: Royal Academy of Music, 2025Click here to listen to a recording.
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Triptych (2025)
for solo violin
Duration: circ. 14 minutes
Click here to listen to a recording of the 1st movement.
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Minuet on a Theme by Ravel (2024)
for solo viola
Duration: circ. 6 minutes
Click here to listen to a recording.
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HexRAMeron Variation and Fugue (2024)
for six-hand piano
Duration: circ. 6 minutes
Premiere: Royal Academy of Music, 2025Click here to listen to a recording.
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Star of the East (2024)
for SSAATTBB choir
Duration: circ. 5 minutes
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Ecstasio (2024)
for cello octet
Duration: circ. 10 minutes
Premiere: Royal Academy of Music, 2024Click here to listen to a recording.
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Chamber Concerto (2024)
for chamber orchestra
Duration: circ. 15 minutes
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Ten Cycles (2024)
for solo flute
Duration: circ. 4 minutes
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Pervasion (2024)
for solo clarinet
Duration: circ. 3 minutes
Click here to listen to a recording.
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In the Bleak Midwinter (2024)
for SATB choir
Duration: circ. 3 minutes
Premiere: Katharine Cree Church, 2024Click here to purchase the score
Click here to listen to a recording.
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Amersham Summer (2024)
improvised soundtrack for cello & piano
Duration: circ. 48 minutes
Click here to watch.
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Glitter Is Not Gold (2024)
for solo cello
Duration: circ. 5 minutes
Premiere: United Reformed Church, Beaconsfield, 2025Click here to listen to a recording.
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Ballade (2024)
for clarinet trio
Duration: circ. 8 minutes
Premiere: York Late Music Festival, 2024Click here to listen to a recording.
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Capriccio (2024)
for bassoon duo
Duration: circ. 3 minutes
Premiere: Purcell School of Music, 2024Click here to listen to a recording.
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Lillibulero (2024)
for solo piano
Duration: circ. 9 minutes
Premiere: Purcell School of Music, 2024 -
Rhapsody for Sextet (2024)
for chamber ensemble
Duration: circ. 3 minutes
Premiere: Dugdale Arts Centre, 2024Click here to listen to a recording.
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Ash Grove (2024)
for chamber orchestra
Duration: circ. 8 minutes
Premiere: Purcell School of Music, 2024Click here to purchase the score
To purchase the parts, please contact the composer directly (email below)
Click here to listen to a recording.
Programme Notes:
Ash Grove is probably one of the weirdest ones so far. It is written for Daniel Fardon, director of the Purcell Creative Ensemble, which gave the work its first performance in 2024. Drawing its point of departure from the Welsh traditional tune of the same name, the piece treats this material not as a melody, but as a quiet presence shaping the harmonic and emotional terrain. It is so static, and shouldn’t work in theory, yet somehow, I think it does. It is pastoral in character, yet deliberately static. Through its simplicity, I tried to craft a spiritual purification of harmony and colour, while the chosen instrumentation explores an ecstatic, slightly unreal timbre, suspended between a distant folk memory and something of a dream. I also wanted to take advantage of the space and distance in the CP Hall, with the solo oboist and clarinetist performing their solo parts from the top of the hall, spaced out from everyone else, and from each other.
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Barton Coast (2024)
for saxophone quartet
Duration: circ. 6 minutes
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Three Scottish Dances (2024)
for oboe quartet
Duration: circ. 7 minutes
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EDTA (2024)
for cello, piano & snare drum
Duration: circ. 4 minutes
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Mirabile Mysterium (2024)
for SSATB choir
Duration: circ. 3 minutes
Premiere: Purcell School of Music, 2024 -
In Memoriam Lulu (2024)
for solo piano
Duration: circ. 4 minutes
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Empire of the Sun (2024)
arrangement for violin & piano
Duration: circ. 4 minutes
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Eclogue (2023)
for wind quintet
Duration: circ. 8 minutes
Premiere: Purcell School of Music, 2024Click here to listen to a recording.
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Fleeting Manhattan (2023)
for orchestra
Duration: circ. 4 minutes
Premiere: St John's Smith Square, 2024Click here to listen to a recording.
Programme Notes:
Fleeting Manhattan was the result of a large chain of brainstorming I did during a trip with my family to New York City. In particular, with Manhattan, there was one thing that stood out, which I couldn’t have told from any video or photo. There is an incredible sense of size distortion which you get when standing in the centre of Central Park, simply by looking up at the skyscrapers. They feel like they are practically hanging over you. Some things can simply only be experienced rather than passed on, but I thought, why not give it a go, in another way, through music. I recently received an orchestral commission, in which to put this to the test, by trying to strike a dynamic contrast between the lively and thrilling streets of Manhattan, and the tranquility of the city's green space. The resulting experience could be one of deep ecstatic fantasy, like an uncanny piece of theatre, but at the same time, reflecting something absolutely beautiful.
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Fantasia-Elegy (2023)
for clarinet & piano
Duration: circ. 8 minutes
Premiere: Royal Academy of Music, 2023Click here to listen to a recording.
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Viennese Autumn Waltz (2023)
for string quartet
Duration: circ. 5 minutes
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Crenark Hill (2023)
for orchestra
Duration: circ. 6 minutes
Premiere: Chorleywood Orchestra, 2024Click here to listen to a recording.
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Allegretto for Clarinet and Piano (2023)
Duration: circ. 5 minutes
Premiere: Royal Academy of Music, 2023Click here to listen to a recording.
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String Trio No. 1 (2023)
Duration: circ. 34 minutes
Premiere: Purcell School of Music, 2024Click here to listen to a recording.
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Hunstanton Prelude (2023)
for chamber ensemble
Duration: circ. 1 minute
Premiere: IMPULSE Outreach Tour, 2023 -
Holst The Planets (2023)
arrangement for solo piano
Duration: circ. 52 minutes
Premiere: Purcell School of Music, 2023Click here to purchase the score.
Click here to listen to a recording.
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Herbstlied (2023)
for solo piano
Duration: circ. 5 minutes
Premiere: Purcell School of Music, 2024Click here to listen to a recording.
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Solo Fantasia No. 1 for Piano (2023)
Duration: circ. 15 minutes
Premiere: Purcell School of Music, 2024Click here to listen to a recording.
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Waltzing Matilda (2023)
arrangement for chamber ensemble
Duration: circ. 3 minutes
Premiere: Commonwealth Day Pre-Service, Westminster Abbey, 2023 -
Interlude for Piano Trio (2023)
Duration: circ. 6 minutes
Premiere: Purcell School of Music, 2023Click here to listen to a recording.
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Passage of Time (2023)
for string quartet
Duration: circ. 7 minutes
Premiere: Carducci Quartet, 2023Click here to listen to a recording.
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Disney Medley, I Guess (2022)
for chamber ensemble
Duration: circ. 4 minutes
Premiere: York Trust, IMPULSE Outreach Tour, 2023 -
One Spirit Voice (2022)
for electronics
Duration: circ. 6 minutes
Premiere: Purcell School of Music, 2022Click here to listen to a recording.
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Prelude and Fugato (2022)
for oboe & bassoon
Duration: circ. 5 minutes
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Response (2022)
for solo piano
Duration: circ. 3 minutes
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Take, O Take (2022)
for baritone & guitar
Duration: circ. 2 minutes
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Lincoln's Speech (2022)
for snare drum & piano
Duration: circ. 1 minute
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Le Voyage dans la Lune (2022)
soundtrack for chamber orchestra
Duration: circ. 12 minutes
Click here to listen to a recording.
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Two Shakespeare Songs (2022)
for SATB choir
Duration: circ. 6 minutes
Premiere: Purcell School Chamber Choir, 20221. Full Fathom Five
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Macbeth (2022)
for orchestra
Duration: circ. 11 minutes
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Elegy for Violin and Guitar (2022)
Duration: circ. 5 minutes
Premiere: Andrea Lam & Giacomo Susani, 2022 -
Prelude, after Bach and Siloti (2022)
for electronics
Duration: circ. 2 minutes
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Quartet for the End of the Day (2021)
for clarinet quartet
Duration: circ. 5 minutes
Premiere: Joy Farrell, Charles Sewart, Richard Jenkinson & Debbie Shah, 2022Click here to listen to a recording.
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Caledonian Voyage (2021)
improvised soundtrack for solo piano
Duration: circ. 28 minutes
Click here to listen to a recording.
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Two Sketches Written from the Dartmouth Steam Railway (2021)
for solo piano
Duration: circ. 3 minutes
Click here to listen to a recording.
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Fugue for String Trio (2021)
Duration: circ. 4 minutes
Premiere: Yu-Wei Huang, Tifany Rodas & Da-In Kim, 2021Click here to listen to a recording.
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Three Short Pieces for Wind Trio (2021)
for clarinet, bassoon & trumpet
Duration: circ. 5 minutes
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Le Ballon Rouge (2021)
soundtrack for chamber ensemble
Duration: circ. 18 minutes
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Mo Li Hua (2021)
for orchestra
Duration: circ. 4 minutes
Premiere: Hatfield House Music Festival, 2022Click here to listen to a recording.
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Gaziantep Dance (2021)
for 2 bendir & piano
Duration: circ. 2 minutes
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Fanfare Piece for Septet (2021)
for chamber ensemble
Duration: circ. 2 minutes
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Passacaglia for Wind Quintet (2021)
Duration: circ. 5 minutes
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Glenealo (2021)
for string orchestra
Duration: circ. 8 minutes
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Prelude in C minor (2021)
for solo piano
Duration: circ. 3 minutes
Click here to listen to a recording.
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Alpenhornhymne (2021)
for brass trio
Duration: circ. 4 minutes
Premiere: Rhys Stokes, Alex Rowsell-Ryan & Alex Holford, 2022Click here to listen to a recording.
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Moment of Minecraft Ambience (2021)
for solo piano
Duration: circ. 4 minutes
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Jazz Elegy (2020)
for solo piano
Duration: circ. 3 minutes
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Piano Sonata No. 1 (2020)
Duration: circ. 8 minutes
Premiere: Purcell School of Music, 2021Click here to listen to a recording of the 1st movement.
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The Tyger (2020)
for string orchestra
Duration: circ. 7 minutes
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Rondo for String Quartet (2020)
Duration: circ. 4 minutes
Premiere: Kucharsky Quartet, 2020 -
Prelude for Violin and Piano (2020)
Duration: circ. 4 minutes
Premiere: Antonia Zadrag & Benji Lock, 2020Click here to listen to a recording.
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Seven Note Fanfare (2020)
for 2 trumpets & violin
Duration: circ. 3 minutes
Premiere: Purcell School of Music, 2020 -
Starry Night (2019)
for violin, viola & piano
Duration: circ. 3 minutes
Written under the guidance of Philip Dutton.
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The Night Hunter (2019)
for chamber ensemble
Duration: circ. 5 minutes
Premiere: Hatfield House Music Festival, 2019Click here to listen to a recording.
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British Fantasia (2019)
for wind quintet
Duration: circ. 6 minutes
Premiere: Purcell School Junior Composition Competition, 2019 -
Sinfonietta (2019)
for brass quintet
Duration: circ. 6 minutes
Written under the guidance of Philip Dutton.
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Fantasia for Four Hands (2019)
for cello & piano
Duration: circ. 5 minutes
Premiere: Djordie Jovanovich & Benji Lock, 2019 -
Trireme (2018)
for orchestra
Duration: circ. 3 minutes
Premiere: Purcell School Sinfonia, 2019Click here to listen to a recording.
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Variations on a Theme from Mary Poppins (2018)
for solo cello
Duration: circ. 4 minutes
Premiere: All Saints Church Marlow, 2019 -
Piano Quintet (2018)
Duration: circ. 7 minutes
Written under the guidance of Deborah Pritchard & Brian Elias.
1. Allegro
2. Lento—Allegro con brio -
Ghostly Dance (2018)
for clarinet quintet
Duration: circ. 4 minutes
Premiere: Purcell School Junior Composition Competition, 2018 -
Novelette (2017)
for cello & piano
Duration: circ. 3 minutes
Premiere: Purcell School of Music, 2019