DANIEL SOLEY
Magnum Opus 2023 Composer
Daniel Soley is a Cardiff-based Worcestershire-born composer, music producer and sound artist working in concert music, film, multimedia, and the performing arts.
His diverse creative output is testimony to the uniquely versatile and comprehensive skills that have made him a valued collaborator. With the natural habit to immerse himself in each opportunity, Daniel writes to communicate with the soul, bring stories to life, and make experiences memorable.
BACKGROUND
Daniel’s imagination was captured at a young age. His training in the violin and euphonium as a child catalysed a fascination with music and sound, compelling him to teach himself whatever instruments he could access. Advancing to perform as a soloist and leader of his local orchestras and ensembles, he also found himself accompanying pop vocalist colleagues at the piano, reciting folk tunes on the melodeon, and tweaking the oscillators of his first synthesiser. This enthusiasm for discovery and practical relationship with music soon led him down the path to writing his own.
WORK
His concert music was first professionally performed by the Band of the Welsh Guards, featuring at a centenary event in Cardiff and later Buckingham Palace. Since then, he’s received the performance of his first orchestral work from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, as well as his first concerto written for Ryan Corbett and Britten Sinfonia. The Halle Orchestra have used his arrangements for school outreach programmes and he’s brought the soundtracks of BBC dramas Hidden and Hinterland to the concert hall as a live performance.
From a traveling puppet show to the Richard Burton Company’s Macbeth, Daniel’s music found its place on the stage whilst he studied. From there, in a revelatory opportunity to work in the attraction industry, he was approached to create music and sound for two multimedia exhibitions in Riyadh, KSA. The short film Bŵl Boy broadcast nationally on BBC 2 Wales and won Daniel the It’s My Shout Best Composer award for its soundtrack. Meanwhile, the independent film Wool introduced the wider world to his score work, screening at numerous international festivals and recognised with several awards. In Tallinn, Estonia, Dan represented the country in person at the ISCM World Music Days Festival presenting Socialite, his sound art animation collaboration with Cardiff School of Art and Design. The project was also recognised by the Experimental Forum Film Festival Los Angeles.
Daniel is a BBC Horizons Launchpad awardee, a Welsh Music Guild Young Composer Award winner, and an Honourary Associate of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. He holds a Bachelor of Music (BMus Hons. First Class, 2017) from the RWCMD and is a former Harrison Clarke Scholar of the Elgar School of Music (Worcester).
