David’s musical training began as a trombone player in the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain playing under great conductors in venues such as the Royal Festival Hall and at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall. He was awarded his ARCM at the age of 17. He then went on to study for his B Mus Tonmeister degree at Surrey University which involved a year working at Abbey Road Studios.
After five years working as a recording engineer and scoring industrial and corporate films he was commissioned to write a number of library music albums and in the mid 1980s became a professional composer.
His years in the NYO saw the beginning of his passion for the symphony orchestra and began the chain of events which has led to his writing such beautiful orchestral scores for projects like: the BBC’s NILE (2004), performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales with his favourite choir the Joyful Company of Singers, his music for the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London (2011) performed by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and his suite The Shard Symphony (2012) which can be heard in The Shard on London’s South Bank performed by the London Symphony Orchestra again with JCS. Most recently you can hear his work with the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra on the series Wild Austria (2018) and his score for the upcoming Silverback/Netflix feature film Secret Lives of Orangutans with the Dream Town Orchestra (2024).
His scores for natural history films have won numerous awards at international film festivals. These include an Emmy in 2016 for The Last Orangutan Eden, a Golden Panda at Wildscreen for The Elephant, the Emperor and the Butterfly Tree (2004), and in America, Best Music at both the American Wildlife Film Awards Jackson Hole (Danger in Tiger Paradise 2003) and the Missoula International Wildlife Film Festival (South Pacific 2010). He was nominated for an Ivor for Danger in Tiger Paradise in 2002 and at the Emmys for Mississippi Tales of the Last River Rat in 2006. The runaway success of the 2019 Netflix film Dancing with the Birds has led to nominations for best music at the Emmys, Wildscreen in Bristol and the International Documentary Awards in New York.
His scores have a rare ability to move an audience and give a film a heightened emotional intensity.
David is based in England in the historic South Wiltshire.
Studio
David’s studio is based around a Mac running Logic Pro. Microphones are by Neuman and AKG and the 5.1 monitoring system is by PMC with Hafler amplification.
Along with a vast array of software instruments and samples, the studio is home to an eclectic collection of instruments from trombones to ukuleles and from anklungs to xaphoons via Tibetan prayer bowls and David’s beloved 1890 double bass.
