About Tom

Scottish composer Tom Harrold’s music has broken a Guinness World Record and opened the Last Night of the Proms; renowned for its "thumpingly rhythmical” nature (The Financial Times) and "dazzling warmth and emotive density" (The Scotsman), it is regularly heard in concert halls, theatres, and broadcasts worldwide.

 

Tom has built among the most diverse portfolios in his two decades of writing music. His recent projects include Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra (BBC Philharmonic), Dark Dance (Psappha, NMC), A Brief Nostalgia (a Birmingham Royal Ballet and Queensland Ballet co-commission), Nightfires (BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra; ‘among the most exciting pieces by a Scottish composer in the last 25 years’, The Herald), Voices of Vimy (BBC Singers and Pro Coro Canada) and To the Light (Scottish Chamber Orchestra). He is one of the only composers to have music broadcast live simultaneously on BBC Radios 3 and 4 (Darkened Dreams). His collaborative partners include percussionist Colin Currie, saxophonist Emma McPhilemy, pianist Philip Sharp, soprano Carine Tinney and euphonium virtuoso Gary Curtin. His music has been aired at venues which include the Berlin Philharmonie, Maison Symphonique du Montréal, Royal Albert, Bridgewater, Wigmore and Liverpool Philharmonic Halls, King’s Place, St John's Smith Square, Sadlers Wells, Hackney Empire, the Barbican and Birmingham Hippodrome.

 

A graduate and now an Associate Member of the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester (where he studied under Professors David Horne, Adam Gorb and Gary Carpenter), Tom is a former winner of the BBC Proms/Guardian Young Composer Award. He lectures at Leeds Conservatoire and Whittle School and Studios, China.

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Tom's current projects include collaborating with French choreographer Sophie Laplane and Ballet Black on a new ballet score, which will tour the UK.