Edward Top is Associate Professor of Composition & Division Chair at the Vancouver Academy of Music since 2014, and since 2019 he is Sessional Lecturer of music composition at the University of British Columbia. He maintains a close relationship with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, who commissioned seven, and performed eleven of his works when he served as its Composer-in-Residence from 2011-2014. The VSO and Bramwell Tovey played the commissioned work Totem in Seattle, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Phoenix on a US West Coast tour in 2013. The VSO and their current Music Director Otto Tausk commissioned Edward to compose Helix, which was performed for the 100th season opening concert in 2018. This work had a second run with the Orchestre symphonique de Trois-Rivières and conductor Jean-Claude Picard in 2023.

In January 2017, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra side-by-side with the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra, conducted by Peter Oundjian, premiered the commissioned work Eruption on tour in the Canadian cities of Ottawa, Montreal, and Toronto.

His recent compositions are focusing on ensembles with historically and culturally diverse instrumentation. He is currently working on works for the Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra in Taiwan, and Chinese and Baroque instruments for the Pacific Baroque Orchestra and Countertenor Reginald Mobley.

Top studied composition and violin at the Rotterdams Conservatorium in The Netherlands. After living and traveling in the Far East for several years, as a violinist in the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra, he completed a Master’s Degree at King's College London. East-Asian culture remains a predominant presence in his life.

Edward Top is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre and his works are published at Donemus in The Netherlands.