Edward Top composer
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Acknowledged by a Dutch newspaper as The Horror Composer, Edward Top’s work is characterised by themes of ‘darkness’. His music grapples with existential questions such as man against nature or reference and association e.g. unlimited semiosis and Cartesian Theatre. Recurring motifs include the grotesque, paranoia, and nostalgia. Top’s music is inspired by paintings of Hyronymus Bosch, James Ensor and Francisco Goya. His work expresses both the balance and struggle between different musical traditions and styles, using historical references and rich harmonic texture in detailed orchestrations.
Born in The Netherlands in 1972 Edward Top has lived and worked in London, Bangkok, and Rotterdam. He now lives in Vancouver with his wife and baby boy. He studied composition with Peter-Jan Wagemans at the Rotterdam Conservatoire where he also majored in violin. He later studied musicology at King’s College London. He also worked with composers Pierre Boulez, Luciano Berio, Peter Eötvös and George Benjamin.
Besides his responsibilities as the Composer-in-Residence with the Vancouver Symphony, his commissions for the season 2012-13 include the Raschèr Saxophone Quartet and The Tempest Flute Ensemble. Edward has also received commissions of the Schoenberg Ensemble, Holland Symfonia, Calefax, Vocaal LAB, Doelen Ensemble, and his works are performed by the Dutch Radio Philharmonic, Netherlands Ballet Orchestra and Peter Rundel, Tokyo Sinfonietta, Ensemble NOISE at San Diego New Music, Standing Wave Vancouver and the Formalist String Quartet in Los Angeles. The Doelen String Quartet has recorded his two quartets on CD.
biography
philosophy
The brain itself looks for relations between seemingly unrelated musical objects. A composer may assume that a modern audience is able to process a quickly changing variety of impressions; think of the new media. The realization of an eclectic collage form is only achieved, or “composed” in the mind of the listener.
The composer should be aware of the limitation of notation; he is expected to convey ideas to the musicians during the rehearsal period.
Music is a tightrope walker balancing on the silver thread of emotion.
To me, there are two types of music: music that goes somewhere, and music that doesn't. It is this simplification of the dynamic versus the static I need to constantly be aware of in order not to divert attention during the process of composition. When both are represented in a composition, it is the contrast and the conflict between these two polar opposites that makes music interesting to me.
quotes
2009 Nominated for the 2008 Toonzetters Award, The Netherlands (for aliquid stat pro aliquo)
2007 One of NOISE’s first annual international call for scores winners, San Diego New Music SoundON Festival (for Four)
2007 New Millennium Composition Competition, Birmingham Conservatoire (with new work Cartesian Theatre)
2006 International Prize of Composition 'Atahualpa Yupanqui' Buenos Aires (for Why Elsewhere)
2006 Rudolf Escher Composer's Bursary for Mmus study at King’s College London (Prince Bernhard Cultural Foundation)
2004 Henriette Bosmans Prize during the 2004 Dutch Music Days Festival (for Marble Sparks)
2003 Salvatore Martirano Award, University of Illinois (for String Quartet #1)
1999 Rotterdam Conservatoire Prize for Composition (for The Stillpoint and Silk Execution)
awards & achievements
2007 String Quartet #1 (1998) recorded by the Doelen Quartet, released by Etcetera (KTC 1339)
2007 Lied der Schwermut for baritone and string quartet (2002) live registration by Martijn Sanders and the Doelen Quartet, Attacca Records' (ATT27108)
recent recordings
My musical thinking centres on rationalizing the ‘Primordial Unity’. In my work, often the conflict between reason and what derives from the lizard brain finds a state of balance in musical schizophrenia where its two counter-poles madness and blankness occur simultaneously or in succession. Counter-poles amplifying each other is key in all of my compositions.
Music has the power to induce the listener into a state of revelry that transcends rational understanding. Whilst using it to its utmost strength, at the same time I feel the need to musically comment on this state - or amplify it, really - by inserting introverted fields of sustained sound or blank, on silence-verging stasis. It is the exaggeration of contrast that creates bracing art.
Toonzetters’ finalists, 2008 edition: Edward Top, Robin de Raaf and Einar Torfi Einarsson. Amsterdam, August 2009.
Top teaching violin at the BST Bangkok Symphony Orchestra String Training Institute, Bangkok 1996
Miguel Mera, Dario Marianelli and Edward Top discussing the music for a scene in the film Atonement during the Sound, Music and the Moving Image conference at BAFTA Piccadilly, London 2007.
