| Biography | Terry Edwards was born in North London and was educated at Trinity College of Music. He taught music and played basketball for the Great Britain team but changed direction after the Olympic Games of 1964 to become a professional singer. He soon became the Manager of firstly the ground-breaking John Alldis Choir and then Roger Norringtons' Schütz Choir of London. In 1973 he formed London Voices and also became the first manager and the sound engineer of Swingle 2 moving on in 1977 to form the pioneering avant-guarde vocal consort Electric Phoenix.
It was with the Swingles and Electric Phoenix that his long association with Luciano Berio began which has lead to over one hundred performances and four recordings of Sinfonia with many of the worlds leading symphony orchestras. Terry Edwards became Director of London Sinfonietta Voices and Chorus in 1980 and this, plus his continuing association with Electric Phoenix, brought him into contact with many of the most famous late twentieth century composers including Adams, (Berio), Birtwistle, Boulez, Cage, Holliger, Ligeti, Maxwell Davies, Messiaen and Pousseur. He gave first performances and made recordings of several of their compositions and was also instrumental in commissioning over fifty other new works.
Sir Georg Solti was hugely influential in the development of Terry Edwards as a Chorus Master, offering him many opportunities with London Voices in Europe and also inviting him to Chicago as guest chorus master with the much acclaimed Chicago Symphony Chorus.
It was Sir Georg who also invited Terry Edwards to act as Guest Chorus Master at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in November 1991 and he completes twelve years as permanent Chorus Director there in the Summer of 2004.
During those years he has prepared the Royal Opera Chorus for productions of one hundred and eleven operas by forty three composers with sixty eight conductors including Abbado, Dohnanyi, Gatti, Gergiev, Haitink, Mackerras, Mehta, Pappano, Rattle, Salonen and Thielemann.
As a conductor he recorded albums by Britten, Ligeti and Messiaen and directed concert cycles of all the madrigals by Wilbye and Marenzio and all the a capella music by Britten and Poulenc. He conducted a BBC Promenade Concert performance of Carmina Burana with one thousand singers drawn from choirs from all over Great Britain. |