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An Evening with Michael Nyman

22 April 10

Michael Nyman reveals the ups and downs of his inspirational career Learn about musical technicalities and processes for film composition Watch clips from a selection of Nyman's greatest achievements

BAFTA webcasts are supported by The Farm Group.

On 1 March 2010, BAFTA and PRS for Music co-presented an evening with Michael Nyman, in which the inspirational composer offered insight into his longstanding career to a captivated audience.

As one of Britain's most innovative and celebrated composers, the two-time BAFTA nominee's work encompasses opera and string quartets, film soundtracks and orchestral concertos. He was awarded a CBE for services to British music in 2008 and, beyond composing, has taken on multiple creative roles as a performer, conductor, bandleader, pianist, author, musicologist and now a photographer and filmmaker.

On stage with film programmer Geoff Andrew, Nyman reveals his influences and experiences working with the moving image and how it relates to his music. He offers valuable lessons on musical technicalities, structures and processes before divulging the working methods behind many of his best-known film scores.

Having first made his mark on the musical world in the late 1960’s, Nyman acknowledges the many ups and downs of working in the industry. He explains the difficulties of translating the vast scope of his imagination onto the structures of a film and goes on to highlight the effects of the editing process on original compositions.

One of the problems with writing a soundtrack is that you have no control of the overall structure of how the music is used...

More about Michael Nyman

Michael Nyman's best known film scores include: Peter Greenaway’s The Draughtsman's Contract and The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover; Neil Jordan's The End of the Affair; elegant science fiction blockbuster Gattaca, his award-winning score for Jane Campion's The Piano, and Man On Wire.

Nyman first made his mark on the musical world in the late 1960s, when he invented the term 'minimalism' and, still in his mid-twenties, earned one of his earliest commissions, to write the libretto for Birtwistle's 1969 opera Down By The Greenwood Side.

For more than 30 years, he has enjoyed a highly successful career over which time he has been nominated for two BAFTA’s and was awarded a CBE for services to British music.

This event was supported by BAFTA and PRS for Music

An Evening with Michael Nyman Podcast

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