Dr Toby Young is the UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at Guildhall School of Music & Drama, where he directs the £1.4 million research programme Immersive Opera. The award supports a major programme of creative research exploring how spatial audio, XR and interactive technologies can reshape operatic composition, production and audience experience.

As a researcher, Toby’s work spans composition, popular musicology, opera studies, sound studies and cultural theory, with a particular focus on the spaces between classical, popular and immersive forms. Before joining Guildhall, he was Lecturer in Music at the University of Oxford, where his work examined electronic dance music and its capacity to mediate complex social, musical and aesthetic spaces. He is editor of The Cambridge Companion to Composition, author of the forthcoming Opera Remixed, and regularly contributes to public and industry conversations on music, creativity and technological change, including talks for TEDx, Resonance FM and Saïd Business School.

As an award-winning composer, producer and creative director, Toby has been commissioned by ensembles and organisations including the London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Academy of Ancient Music, Rambert Dance Company and English National Opera. He has collaborated with artists including the Rolling Stones, Chase & Status, Duran Duran, Florence Welch, Kano, Snow Ghosts, MOKO and Jacob Banks, and has worked across records, live performance, film, television and immersive media. He was Head of Music and Music Supervisor for Punchdrunk, one of the world’s leading immersive theatre companies, with credits including The Burnt City and BAFTA-nominated productions for HBO and Sky.

Toby is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a trustee of British Youth Opera.

www.theothertoby.com