Brewing Spells

Michael Edwards is an award winning composer and pianist, whose work spans film, television, theatre, live concert performance and recordings.

He recently won best score at the Los Angeles Cinefest 2016 for his orchestral score to award winning film The Clockmaker’s Dream (Cashell Horgan, Jared Harris). The film has since won awards at international film festivals and was recently screened at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.

Michael is currently working with the Konzerthaus Orchestra in Berlin.  The newly commissioned composition will be recorded in the Grosser Saal in the Konzerthaus late September and released shortly after.

In early 2016, Michael composed music for the 3 part documentary 1916: The Irish Rebellion (narrated by Liam Neeson). Michael performed his music live on piano with the RTE Concert Orchestra at the premier screening at the Concert Hall in Dublin 16.03.16 for the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising.

Michael also composes music to selected short films, recently completing the score to the film Narcan featuring Malachy McCourt (Angelas Ashes).

Michael has composed and produced music to an number of theatre productions. His original score to the award winning show Asyl Monologe recently had its 300th show at the Heimathafen in Berlin.

A native of Australia, he has composed music for top TV shows including Water Rats, and Murder Call. He wrote the National News Theme for Channel 7’s prime time current affairs show Today Tonight.  He also worked on many commercial recordings, programming and arranging for various Australian and international acts.  

His first feature film work was his contribution to Lisa Gerrard’s (Golden Globe, Gladiator) score for the Oscar nominated film Whale Rider (2002). He went on to collaborate with Lisa on several films including Layer Cake 2004 (Daniel Craig) and Ichi 2008 (Fumihiku Sori) and 2 albums (Silver Tree, Black Opal) and three world tours. The hit Spaceweaver features in the film Secret Defence.

In 2003 Michael moved to London and set up a studio in Soho, and composed extensively for British television.

In London Michael also worked with labels Ministry of Sound and HedKandi, producing and remixing hits for Moloko, and Swedish group Stonebridge’s UK Top 10 hit Put em' High, co-writing the hit single Perfect Stranger sung by Atef, runner up of France's The Voice in 2012.

Whilst living in London he often travelled to Hollywood for extended periods collaborating most notably with composer Patrick Cassidy (Hannibal). He also composed music for Kill the Irishman (2011), Fuga Per La Liberta (2008) and The Front Line (2006), and the ASCAP award nominated score for Calvary (2014). Michael’s piano music closes the last 3 minuets of the film, hauntingly completing the story alone without dialogue. In LA, Michael also worked with Jeff Most (The Crow) composing for his film The Tomb (2009)

As a performer, Michael has performed at many renowned concert halls around the world including the Hollywood Bowl, Radio City Music Hall, Albert Hall, Barbican, Berlin Philharmonie. He toured extensively with Dead Can Dance, Skye (Morcheeba), and Darren Hayes (Savage Garden).

His theatre work includes  Ice and Fire Theatre (London), Bühne für Menschenrechte (Berlin), Massive Attack's Meltldown Festival London, Rendition at the Edinburgh Festival 2009, and Jan Becker's Hypnotise the World stage show.

A fluent German speaker, Michael's music can also be heard on the German films Out Of Society (2013) and Die Gewählten(2014) and the German TV series Katrin und die Welt der Tiere (2010).

Michael grew up in Australia and currently lives in Berlin. His classical training began whilst at high school in Brisbane studying at Queensland Conservatorium on viola, and playing in the Queensland Youth Orchestra. 

He went on to study music at Queensland University of Technology graduating with a Bachelor of Music on piano. Whilst studying he spent his evenings playing jazz gigs in piano bars.