Toby Young (b.1990) is an award-winning composer and producer, who creates immersive and innovative work that ‘defies stylistic pigeonholing' (Gramophone).
His music is rooted in the theatricality and storytelling of opera, the energy of electronic dance music and the emotion of film scores, creating evocative and powerful soundscapes that have been described as 'sonically spectacular' (Evening Standard) and ‘strikingly impressive’ (International Record Review). It has been played around the world at venues ranging from the Royal Albert Hall to Glastonbury Festival and broadcast worldwide, including on BBC Radio 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6.
In 2022, Toby was selected by the PRS Foundation to be featured in the New Music Biennial, a festival showcasing the work from boundary-pushing composers who represent ‘the state of new music in the country today’. His new work ‘Breathlines’, a hybrid between a saxophone-concerto and a guided meditation, was performed by Amy Dickson at the Southbank Centre and Coventry Cathedral.
Toby is regularly commissioned for orchestral and choral music by ensembles including the London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Academy of Ancient Music, Fretwork and London Mozart Players, and choirs including Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s Cathedral, King’s College (Cambridge), New College (Oxford), and St Thomas Fifth Avenue. His concert music has been celebrated with festival residencies and spotlights in Berlin, Venice, and the UK, and he has been awarded Editor’s Choice three times by the prestigious music house J.W. Pepper. He has recently been appointed Composer in Residence with the Orchestra of St John’s.
As Music Supervisor for the theatre company Punchdrunk, Toby has created music for several productions including the BAFTA-nominated drama ‘The Third Day’ (Sky/HBO) and large-scale immersive experience ‘The Burnt City’. He is also a member of Right/Left Projects, who create multi-disciplinary work that challenges conventional forms of storytelling. Together their work includes Charon, an ‘immersive dreamscape and kinetic artwork’ installation for the Greenwich and Docklands Festival, and The Retiring Room, a deep listening experience in a hotel room at The Standard, London.
As a producer, Toby has produced albums and live recordings for artists including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Royal Opera, English National Opera, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Chineke!, Opera North, Welsh National Opera, and the Orchestra of the Swan. He has a particularly close relationship with the Philharmonia Orchestra, with whom he collaborated extensively on research and development into the use of cutting-edge immersive and spatial technologies (including virtual and augmented reality, 360º sound, location-based audio, etc.) to creatively re-imagine live performance, as part of the government’s ‘Audience of the Future’ scheme. During lockdown, Toby produced live-stream recordings with some of the country’s leading artists, including Vassily Petrenko, Stephen Hough, Paul Lewis, Nicola Benedetti, Wajahat Khan, and Jess Gillam.
In the world of commercial music, Toby has co-written several chart-topping hits with drum and bass artists Chase & Status, and collaborated with artists including Duran Duran, Florence Welch, Kano, Snow Ghosts, MOKO, and Jacob Banks. He has written string, choral, and orchestral arrangements for several GRAMMY-winning and nominated albums artists including the Rolling Stones, Ellie Goulding, the King’s Singers, Joyce DiDonato, Fatma Said, Ilayaraja, Mark Lettieri (Snarky Puppy) and Cassidy Janson (Beautiful, &Juliet).
A deeply committed educator, Toby is Professor of Composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he teaches courses on contemporary music, interdisciplinary collaboration, and practice-led research. He has written books and journal articles on topics including music composition, opera, philosophy, music and wellbeing, and cultural sociology, including the forthcoming ‘Cambridge Companion to Composition’. Toby has a doctorate in music and philosophy from the University of Oxford and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Arts and British American Project, and a trustee of the Albert Schweitzer Foundation.
Toby is a Signum Records artist, and his music is published by Peer Music and Oxford University Press.
