Derek Nisbet is a Composer, Musician, Sound Designer & Film-maker who specialises in creating music for unusual situations. Work includes music for cathedral organ to preface a tightrope walk by Ramon Kelvink (Tightrope Prelude), for a theatre show in an underground car-park (Wanderlust), for a brass band and choir in a livestock mart in Ireland (The Last Lot) and for a show to mark the decommissioning of a hospital (Three Doctors). In the past 12 months he has worked with London Sinfonietta, the CBSO and Cães do Mar, has recorded his music live for BBC Radio 3’s Words and Music and was Associate Musical Director of the opening event for Coventry UK City of Culture 2021. His Symphony of Remembering received its live premiere on 11 June 2022 by Orchestra of the Swan at Coventry Cathedral with Rachel Mahon (Organ).
Derek is Co-Artistic Director of acclaimed theatre experimentalists Talking Birds – he has created scores and sound designs for over 50 theatre productions – which include Troy Story, an opera commissioned by Orchestra of the Swan, performed at Town Hall, Birmingham by a cast and orchestra nearly 200 strong, including 164 young people from Primary & Special Educational Needs schools. It was a finalist in the Best Musical Initiative category in the 2014 Music Teacher Awards.
His work with some of the leading artists and companies of the day including Claire Cunningham (Guide Gods), Ockham’s Razor (Arc and The Mill), Untied Artists (Intimate History) and Theatre Absolute (Powder, Far From The Sea) has been performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the National Theatre, the Royal Opera House, the Lillian Bayliss Theatre at Sadler’s Wells and at venues in Moscow, Vancouver and Sweden. His music has been heard on BBC Radio 3 (Late Junction) and BBC Radio 4 (The Balloonists, Dr Pfeffer’s Lonely Hearts Club and Messages to a Submariner).
www.dereknisbet.info 