Biography

ABOUT

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 output is testimony to the uniquely versatile and comprehensive skills that have made him a valued and dedicated collaborator. With the natural habit to immerse himself in each project, Daniel’s creativity aims to bring ideas to life and make new experiences vividly memorable.

BACKGROUND

Daniel’s imagination was captured at a young age. His childhood training in the violin and euphonium catalysed a fascination with music that compelled him to play whatever instrument he could get his hands on. Advancing to perform as a soloist and leader of his local youth orchestras and ensembles, Daniel could also be found reciting folk songs on a borrowed melodeon, improvising with friends on school pianos, and tweaking the oscillators of his first synthesiser. An intimate and social relationship with music, along with the enthusiasm for discovery, soon led him down the path to writing his own compositions.

WORK

Daniel’s concert music was first professionally performed by the Band of the Welsh Guards after a chance commission to write for their centenary celebrations in Cardiff and 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 accordionist Ryan Corbett and Britten Sinfonia. The Hallé Orchestra have used his arrangements for school outreach programmes and he’s brought the soundtracks of BBC dramas Hinterland and Hidden to the concert hall for a special live performance.

From a traveling puppet show to ‘The Scottish Play’, Daniel’s music also found its place in the theatre whilst he studied, thanks to the Richard Burton Company. He has since been recruited to create bespoke music and sound for international multimedia attractions. At the ISCM World Music Days Festival in Tallinn, Daniel represented Wales with Socialite, his sound art animation collaboration with Cardiff School of Art and Design. The project was also showcased at the Experimental Forum Film Festival in Los Angeles, leading to 4 follow-up projects with the school. The short film Bŵl Boy, which broadcast nationally on the BBC in Wales, won Daniel the It’s My Shout Best Composer award for its soundtrack, and the independent short film Wool introduced the wider world to his scoring work after screening at a list of international festivals, recognised with several awards.

Daniel is a Welsh Music Guild Young Composer Award winner and an Associate of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. His activity has been supported by BBC Horizons Launchpad, the PRS Foundation and Help Musicians. He holds a Bachelor of Music (BMus Hons. First Class, 2017) from the RWCMD and is a former Harrison Clarke Scholar (2011-13) of the Elgar School of Music, Worcester.