Will Todd was born and brought up in County Durham and taught himself the piano from an early age. His extensive output includes opera, musicals, oratorio, orchestral works and works for children and amateur performers. His work has been featured on Radio 3’s In Tune, Classic FM and the Radio 2 Arts Programme and performed and broadcast all over the UK, Europe and the USA. He has worked with The Hallé; The Sixteen; BBC Singers; Opera Genesis (ROH); Welsh National Opera Max; English National Opera Studio; National Opera Studio; and The Brunel Ensemble. Will’s theatre works have been produced at The Linbury Studio Theatre (ROH); Buxton Opera Festival; New York Music Theatre Festival; and Boston Conservatory and he has collaborated with some of the UK’s most high profile directors including David Edwards, Keith Warner, John Caird and Jonathan Munby. He frequently performs the jazz piano part for his acclaimed Mass in Blue, and leads his own jazz trio. He holds a BA and MMus from Bristol University.
In 2001 his opera The Blackened Man (libretto Ben Dunwell) received second prize in the prestigious International Guiseppe Verdi Competition for the Composition of a Lyric Opera in Italy. Excerpts from the opera have been recorded by The Hallé Orchestra and Choir, and showcase performances of the work took place in the Royal Opera House Linbury Studio in September 2002. The first fully-staged production of The Blackened Man was at the Buxton Festival in July 2004.
The Screams of Kitty Genovese (story and libretto by David Simpatico) was produced at The Boston Conservatory in October 2001 following successful development work at Opera Lab, The Eugene O’Neill Music Theater Conference (USA) and English National Opera. This through-scored music theatre work also received a reading at the National Association of Musical Theater Annual Conference in New York in September 2001. Of Kitty Genovese Robert Brustein wrote in New Republic: “In addition to being one of the most powerful operas of the last decade, ‘The Screams of Kitty Genovese’ gave me hope for the renewal of musical theater”. The work is based on the true 1964 story of New Yorker Kitty Genovese who was stabbed to death outside her home while 38 neighbours watched from their windows. The writers have subsequently worked with director John Caird who directed a workshop production at New York’s Public Theater in November 2004. In 2006 The Screams of Kitty Genovese was produced at the New York Music Theatre Festival, directed by David Edwards.
The oratorio Saint Cuthbert (libretto Ben Dunwell, 1996 - based on the life of the great Northumbrian saint) has been performed and recorded by The Hallé Orchestra and Choir and the Northern Sinfonia Chorus with soloists Patricia Rozario, John Hudson and Graeme Danby, conducted by Christopher Austin. This inspirational work has received several performances in Durham Cathedral and is currently available on Northumbria Anthology (MWM CDSP56).
Another work with a North Eastern theme is the cantata The Burning Road (1996 – libretto by Ben Dunwell). This stirring reflection on the 1936 Jarrow March was commissioned by Northampton Bach Choir in 1996 to celebrate the 60 th anniversary of the march. It has since received six further performances and was released on Silva Classics (SILK 6025) in 1998 with Crouch End Festival Chorus conducted by David Temple. Of The Burning Road Andrew Achenbach writes in Gramophone Magazine: “Todd writes in an approachable, but never patronising idiom, the bittersweet lyricism of his music offset by a keen dramatic flair; certainly The Burning Road distils a compassionate warmth, bitter anguish and defiant strength that do not betray its stirring subject matter” and Michael White writes in The Independent on Sunday “It tells a story about courage and determination. And its music is a gift for singing – paying dues to Messiaen, Vaughan Williams, Britten – but alive and energised and packing an emotional punch.”
Recent choral works include a jazz setting of the Latin mass Mass in Blue, which has been performed more than twenty times since its 2003 premiere, as well featuring on two commercial recordings - most recently by the Vasari Singers for Signum Records. Gala and Gloria, a large-scale setting of the traditional Gloria with new interpolations from Ben Dunwell on the theme of the Durham Miners’ Gala, was commissioned by Durham Choral Society and premiered in Durham Cathedral in May 2004.
Other notable choral works are Midwinter (1992 - soloists, choir and orchestra), commissioned by Queen’s College Cambridge and recorded by the Brunel Ensemble in 1994 and A Song of Creation (libretto Tim Fowler), a large-scale work for double choir, soloists, children’s choir, chamber choir, chamber strings and symphony orchestra which was commissioned by Derby Choral Union for the millennium celebrations in Derby Cathedral.
Will Todd has written the music for a number of other stage works including the musical Between Love and Passion (1999) which received a five-week run at the New End Theatre, Hampstead in London with the London Musicals Company, Isambard Kingdom Brunel (operatic musical - 1993), Box of Tricks (children’s musical - 1994), The Greatest Gameshow on Earth (children’s show - 1998), Tales from the End of Northworld (music drama - 1999) and Daniel and the Pride of Kings (musical - 1998).
Notable orchestral works include Winter Dances (1989), a violin concerto commissioned by the Brunel Ensemble in 1996 and premiered by Christopher George, a saxophone concerto recorded by the Brunel Ensemble in 1994, a trumpet concerto (2000), Concert Suite from Brunel (1994) and Yorkshire Dance (1996). Will Todd has also written a large body of smaller scale choral works which includes a rite A communion service, a Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, The Sacred Three (1998), A Pageant for Christmas (1997), The Ballad of Will Jobling (1997 - male voice choir), an Agnus Dei (2003), commissioned by Derby Choral Union for a performance with Emma Kirkby, and many anthem settings.
In 2001 Will Todd was commissioned by Glyndebourne to write Fire Work (words by Elizabeth Clarke Melville) a short opera for their Youth Opera Group. Will has also worked for the education departments of Welsh National Opera and English National Opera and was a regular guest artist at the Northlands Festival in Scotland. His large-scale community opera BLAZE! was commissioned by Northern Stage and performed in Darlington in July 2004. Will was invited to write a piece for “Brave New World”, a three-day theatre marathon held between 9 and 11 September at City Hall, New York to mark the first anniversary of the World Trade Center disaster. The ensuing choral work entitled And my Friend, with words by David Simpatico, was heard alongside other works by artists including Stephen Sondheim, Alfred Uhry and Jules Feiffer.
Recent performances include Among Angels - commissioned by the Genesis Foundation and premiered by The Sixteen in Salzburg in March 2006; Whirlwind - a major new opera for Streetwise Opera, premiered at The Sage Gateshead in October 2006; and Sweetness and Badness - an opera for WNO Max which toured in autumn 2006. Will has recently completed a new clarinet concerto for Emma Johnson, and is currently working with Opera Genesis at the Royal Opera House on a new stage work Calling Manila, based on the life of assassinated political leader Ninoy Aquino. A Requiem for soprano, choir and guitar is planned for 2008, as well as a choral commission for the 2009 Southern Cathedrals Festival.
November 2007