biography
"Cool and aloof as a Hitchcock blonde.” Seattle Weekly
“Top has an ear for orchestral colour second to none. The work reflects an earthy neo-primitivism” The Vancouver Sun
“... horror composer Edward Top acted as a kind of snake, hypnotizing listeners as frightened little bunnies ...” NRC Handelsblad
Style
In 1996, a Dutch newspaper deemed Edward Top as 'Horror Composer', an enduring moniker for a young newcomer. Top's eclectic musical language has since grown into an amalgamation of expressionism, postminimalism, film noir, post-rock, extreme metal, and the visual art of Hieronymus Bosch, James Ensor, Francisco Goya, and Andy Warhol. His sound often oscillates between opposing forces, using rich textures in detailed orchestrations.
Top is especially influenced by composer Wolfgang Rihm, in works such as String Quartet No.1 (1998) and Concerto for Violin and Two Orchestras, Witte Wieven (2007). In Totem, for orchestra (2012), the lyric expressionism of Witte Wieven meets the dark orchestral colours of György Kurtág and the fast drumming of the extreme metal genre. The Vancouver Sun identified it as “earthy neo-primitivism.”
Since 2013, Edward Top’s music has evolved from his expressionistic roots, as he battled towards and away from the grand narratives of modernism. His recent pieces reflect a simpler tone of purity and honesty, and an economic use of musical material, but still characterized by recurring themes such as the grotesque, the primal, and the sublime. For example, in the piece Pots ‘n Pans Falling (2013), a stark contrast to his previous stylistic splurges, the members of the ensemble echo a recording of Top’s 7-year old violin student playing a fragile, yet haunting motive. It was composed to commemorate the young survivors of the Sandy Hook shooting.
Edward has collaborated with Chinese musicians, which has enriched his orchestration palette with works such as Confluence (2021) for erhu string quartet, Farewell Songs (2023) for countertenor, Baroque and Chinese instruments, and The Grey Tree (2024) for Chinese chamber orchestra. In the latter, Chinese instruments incorporate elements from his Dutch heritage.
Career Highlights
Edward served as the Composer-in-Residence of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra from 2011-2014, during which time, they performed ten of his works. The highlight was when Maestro Bramwell Tovey conducted the commissioned work, Totem, on a U.S. West Coast Tour (2013) including Seattle, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Phoenix. He still maintains a cordial relationship with the VSO and its musicians, and Music Director Otto Tausk.
Top has received commissions from the Taiwan Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Island Symphony, Schoenberg Ensemble, Holland Symfonia, Ensemble contemporain de Montréal, Calefax reed quintet, Vocal LAB Silbersee, Doelen Ensemble, Raschèr Saxophone Quartet, The Tempest Flute Ensemble and Standing Wave.
His works were performed by the Dutch Radio Kamerorkest, Netherlands Ballet Orchestra, Tokyo Sinfonietta, Catchfire Collective, Ensemble NOISE at San Diego New Music, and the Formalist String Quartet in Los Angeles. Edward is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre. Edward also has an enduring relationship with chamber ensembles: his two string quartets were composed for the Rotterdam Doelen Quartet, who regularly performed his works. They premiered the second quartet in Paris in the presence of Henri Dutilleux, and recorded both works on CD.
In Vancouver, ensemble Standing Wave performed four of his works, including an arrangement of Slayer’s thrash-metal classic Angel of Death, and the aforementioned Pots ‘n Pans Falling, which has been released on CD in late 2016. In January 2017, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Peter Oundjian, premiered the commissioned work Eruption on tour in the Canadian cities of Ottawa, Montreal, and Toronto.
His scores are published at Donemus Publishing.
Teaching
Edward Top is Associate Professor & Division Chair of Composition at the Vancouver Academy of Music, and a Sessional Lecturer in Composition and Orchestration at the University of British Columbia (UBC).
He is the mentor composer for the Jean Coulthard Readings and Mentorship Program at the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and has been invited as a guest at the Banff Centre, Simon Fraser University Vancouver, Codarts University of the Arts Rotterdam, Vancouver Pro Musica, Canadian Music Centre, Westcoast Harp Society, Amsterdam Conservatorium University of the Arts.
Education and Training
Edward Top completed a Master’s Degree in Musicology at King’s College London (2008), during which he had the privilege to work with George Benjamin. Edward Top began his studies in composition and violin at the Rotterdam Conservatoire, under the tutelage of Peter-Jan Wagemans, and also worked with Klaas de Vries, Peter Eötvös, Pierre Boulez, and Luciano Berio.
Personal
Edward was born in Ommen, the Netherlands, in 1972. He has lived and worked in Rotterdam, Bangkok, and London. He now lives in Vancouver with his family. Edward's hobbies include collecting musical instruments and playing guitar and violin in a prog-rock band called SQUARE.