Tai Dawson
Biography
Tai Dawson is a British composer, multi-instrumentalist, and a solo artist. In his solo work, he explores different themes orchestral, cinematic soundtracks to various groups of production style music such as trailers and ambient textures. Dawson’s work includes Westwood’s Scoring Competition Lost Piano - his first short film and for which he was an honorable mention.
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“[Lost Piano] Beautiful texture and sound world you created here! You really brought out the emotion and established a connection with the visuals! Really great build up too!”
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The CueTube’s Ocean - Dawson’s piece Sea Life was a rescore. Other works that deserve mention include his soundtrack for the audio drama Take Back Your Voice directed by Renee Morille, which was presented as an open mic event to raise awareness of sexual harassment.
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“[Tai Dawson] a passion for his craft, producing high quality work that captured the essence of the project.” - Renee Morille
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Dawson began playing and teaching himself piano as a child and then added the guitar, bass, and drums to his repertoire. He studied theory and production in school, while practicing composition at home. He then moved on to Digital Music and Sound Arts at the University of Brighton, which he is set to graduate in Summer 2023.
Tai Dawson is an emerging solo artist, and in 2022 he released Lone Hunter, a heroic, cinematic, orchestral soundtrack, which to date has received over 3500 streams on Spotify alone.
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He has also composed music for advertisements. Playing Field Agency worked with Dawson in relation to the Soho House Creative Network Mentorship. This gave Dawson the opportunity to write music for Client Earth - a nonprofit organization fighting for change against the climate crisis. In 2020 Tai Dawson received a certificate of achievement for his work on his Music Technology Course.
Artistic Statement
Tai Dawson has several interests from orchestral cinematic soundtracks and more recently to game/action trailer music, with a few works exploring ambient or folk music. His main philosophy is deeply rooted in the idea that music is more than just a creative outlet, but rather, a whole other language. It has been a powerful language that he has learned to use to express emotions that are hard to articulate with words alone. So, every time he writes, his goal is to adequately evocate an emotion.
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His practice is based on utilizing references from various sources, not just for mixing but also to set him in the right psychological state for composing a specific theme or emotion. He follows a 'Less is more' philosophy when arranging any piece of music and believes that you can evoke a profound sense of emotion without using many sound sources, it is how you use instruments that makes them more provocative.
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Even if the musical genres and themes vary between. Dawson aims to create pieces that no matter what the audience can instantly identify the emotion. Thus, he considers his ambient pieces to be more conceptual art, as the finished work is not as important as the idea behind it, typically a sense of floating. Outside of ambient work, Dawson is drawn to work that conveys solitude or pensive. Both emotions were poignant in pieces for Take Back Your Voice and Lost Piano. ​
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Projects
Winter '22 - Present
Community Tings
A mockumentary about a roadman trying to make change in his community.
Summer 2022
Demo for Client Earth
Working alongside Playing Field Agency to create a social media campaign for Client Earth. Client Earth wanted to emphasize why they are against the use of fossil fuels, so I created a unique advertisement featuring piano and dark synths that bring a strong sonic difference.
Winter/Spring 2022
Take Back Your Voice
Consulted with director to determine placement of musical cues and coordinate artistic vision. Used Cubase to arrange cuts of soundtracks for movies. Determined voices, instruments, harmonic structures, rhythms, tempos, and tone balances required to achieve effects desired in each musical composition. Scored compositions for consistency with instrumental and vocal capabilities.