composer | conductor | producer
Harmony for today
...for those drawn to profound experiences, my vision is to create harmony for today – harmony that transforms the listener and performer, reaches out across boundaries, and awakens hope beyond the shallow chaos of the world...
Watch
In performance
Dances with Redeemed Creation
St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne, June 2024
Composer and pianist Antony Pitts plays a long-form improvisation on his early virtuoso work, Dance of Redeemed Creation, as part of the 2024 Lunchtime Concert Series at St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne.
My first impulse on hearing this disc was to commend it unreservedly to each and every man, woman, and child on the planet
FANFARE
Three ways in
Commission, perform, or just listen
Antony Pitts is a visionary creator and transformative leader – a Chapel Royal Chorister, New College Oxford Scholar, BBC Senior Producer, Royal Academy of Music Senior Lecturer, Artistic Director of Australia’s The Song Company, and the trans-hemispheric Founder-Director of the highly innovative ensembles TONUS PEREGRINUS & TONUS AUSTRALIS. Antony is the inaugural William Byrd Fellow & Ambassador at Excelsia University College in Sydney. “His is a compositional voice of real personality and imagination” (Gramophone).
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FUTURE
a composer to watch out for
AllMusic
Take part in the creation of brand-new work. Or attach your name to music already completed.
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PAST
a marvellous work
Scherzo
Albums on 1equalmusic, Hyperion, Naxos, Challenge, Delphian, and Signum, and a musical timeline of the whole journey.
Listen -
CURRENT
a composer on a spiritual quest
Gramophone
Scores from 1equalmusic and Faber Music, including XL, the companion forty-part motet to Tallis’s Spem in alium.
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In progress
Current and future projects
Two commissioning slots open for 2027.
Requiem for the Time of the End
A monumental setting, with movements commissioned by many ensembles including the Choir of New College, Oxford, and the Cheltenham Festival – a few movements may still be retroactively commissioned.
The Process
A work-in-progress – music theatre inspired by Kafka, starlings, and social media – out of which the Murmuration technique is evolving.
A Passion Foretold
A quadraphonic Passion setting all four Gospel accounts into a parallel narrative – a diatessaron – which may be performed separately or together. A fully immersive experience for both audience and musicians.
The Murmuration series
Works using the murmuration technique, one of three research strands at Excelsia.
Recognition
Awards & accolades
DMus – Doctor in Church Music
2026 awarded by the Central School of Religion, for a portfolio of compositions from 1996 to 2011
Gramophone Top 10 modern classics
2014 the TONUS PEREGRINUS Passio recording listed among ten masterworks composed since 1982
Prix Italia – Radio Music prize
2004 for A Pebble in the Pond, a radiophonic work showcased in BBC Radio 3’s Between the Ears
Cannes Classical Award – Choral: 19/20th century
2004 for TONUS PEREGRINUS’s recording of Arvo Pärt’s Passio – a #1 album in the UK Classical charts
Gramophone Editor’s Choice
2003 & 2005 twice for TONUS PEREGRINUS albums – Arvo Pärt’s Passio and Antony Pitts’s Seven Letters
Radio Academy BT Award
1995 for Facing the Radio – “For the Innovative use of Interactive Technologies Combining the Networks of the Internet and Telephone In the Production of Live Music Radio”