Will Todd Music

Will Todd taught himself the piano from an early age and grew up in County Durham, North East England where his grandfather was a coal miner and his parents were teachers. His early musical development was with the Durham County Music Service and St Oswald’s Choir in Durham and in 1981 he was awarded a music scholarship to study at Durham School. His love of improvising has been the central force in a wide ranging career of composing and playing. Will has worked with many of the UK’s leading music organisations including The Royal Ballet and Opera, Welsh National Opera, Opera North, The Hallé Orchestra, Opera Holland Park, The Sixteen, Tenebrae, The BBC Singers and the BBC Concert Orchestra. He has also visited many countries performing and directing his music as well as working all over the UK with professional and amateur choirs as well as youth singers.

His love of choral music is reflected in a large output including masses, anthems and larger sacred concert works including Mass in Blue, which has been performed hundreds of times around the world since its 2003 premiere. His carol My Lord Has Come has become a worldwide favourite since it was included in Oxford University Press’s Carols for Choirs Five in 2012. Other widely performed choral pieces include Passion Music, Jazz MIssa Brevis and his arrangement of Amazing Grace. Will Todd also has an impressive list of theatre works including The Screams of Kitty Genovese, produced most recently by Tête à Tête Opera in London and Edinburgh, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Christmas Carol for Opera Holland Park, Migrations for Welsh National Opera, Song of our Heartland, commissioned by Opera North, Angels On The Underground recorded for film by The Sixteen, and Sing, Dance, Leap a work commissioned for Bradford City of Culture in 2025 by the Royal Ballet and Opera.

Will Todd is president and patron of a number of UK choirs. He strongly believes in music making for all, and his personal motto when directing choirs is ‘find the passion’. He has worked regularly throughout his career on community projects both large and small. Outside music his interests include supporting the environmental movement in any way he can.

His music is published by Oxford University Press, Boosey and Hawkes and Tyalgum Press and released on Signum Records.

For further information www.willtodd.co.uk