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"At first I thought I might be a concert pianist, but then I realised I liked being creative and coming up with my own tunes! "
Award winning composer Debbie Wiseman has composed and conducted over 150 scores for film and television productions. Her credits include the scores for Wilde, He Knew He Was Right, Tom & Viv, Freeze Frame, The Guilty, Before You Go, Othello, Tom's Midnight Garden, Face At The Window and Stig Of The Dump. 2004/5 will see the release of Debbie Wiseman's scores for three new movies - 'Arsene Lupin' starring Kristin Scott Thomas; 'Something Borrowed' starring Will & Grace's Debra Messing and 'The Truth About Love' starring Jennifer Love Hewitt and Dougray Scott.
Debbie Wiseman has won and been nominated for two Ivor Novello Awards, a Grammy Award, a TRIC Award and two RTS Awards. In January 2004 she was honoured in the Queen's New Year's Honours list with an M.B.E. for services to the music industry.
Lyrics by Don Black
In a career that has won him many glittering prizes, Don Black has worked with some of the world's leading composers and has written over a hundred songs for Motion Pictures including The Italian Job, Dances With Wolves, Out of Africa and a quintet of James Bond theme songs including Thunderball, Diamonds are Forever, The Man With The Golden Gun and The World Is Not Enough. Don made his West End debut as a lyricist with composer John Barry in the hit musical Billy staring Michael Crawford (Theatre Royal, Drury Lane),
Don Black received two Broadway Tony Awards for best book and best lyrics of a musical for his work on Sunset Boulevard. This marked his third theatrical collaboration with Andrew Lloyd Webber. Currently he has two shows on Broadway, the highly acclaimed Bombay Dreams (produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber) and Dracula, for which he wrote the book and lyrics together with Christopher Hampton). His latest musical Brighton Rock written with John Barry was recently produced at The Almeida Theatre in London. Don was recently awarded an OBE in the Queens Birthday Honours list.
Meet the Composer
Tania, Jake, Matthew, Sarah and Rebecca - singers from the Centre for Young Musicians - talked to Debbie while they were recording this song.
What made you want to write a song about anti-violence? Don Black, the lyricist, came up with the idea 'No wars will stop us singing'. It's about the fact that we all have a voice, we can all be positive and we all want peace. I thought it was a very important sentiment and I wanted it to be a song that everyone of all ages could sing.
Did you always want to compose professionally? At first I thought I might be a concert pianist, but then I realised I liked being creative and coming up with my own tunes! At music college I liked composing melodic music and I thought I'd like to write for film or television, as I am often inspired by pictures. To get my first commission, I just sent out about a hundred CDs of my music to producers and directors. I got one reply and had my chance! It took about two years to get going and to have regular commissions.
What would you say is a good way to get into composing? First you really have to understand the instruments of the orchestra in order to know how to compose for them. My composition teacher said to try to learn to play a scale on every single instrument. I did what he suggested and I can now play a scale on almost every instrument, although I did have real trouble getting anything out of a tuba. It's such a large instrument and I'm a small person! Also, I try to write something every day to keep my head ticking over. It doesn't matter if it ends up being no good and I change it ... at least it's something.
Are there any composers you look up to? If it's film music, I would say John Williams (he wrote the music to Harry Potter). For classical music I like Mozart, Messiaen and Beethoven. In the pop world I like people who write strong melodies - Elton John, George Michael and all the Beatles' tunes - I like really good tunes! |
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