About Nigel Westlake  (March 2007)

Nigel Westlake's career in music has spanned more than 3 decades.

He studied the clarinet with his father, Donald Westlake (a prominent Australian musician & principal clarinettist with the Sydney Symphony orchestra 1961-1979) & subsequently left school early to pursue a performance career in music.

Nigel toured Australia & the world playing with ballet companies, a circus troupe, chamber music groups, fusion bands & orchestras to the cities of London, New York, Rome, Washington, Tokyo, Beijing, Paris, Amsterdam, Vancouver, Moscow, Hong Kong, Berlin, New Delhi & Singapore to name but a few.

His interest in composition dates from the late 1970's when he formed a classical/jazz-rock/world-music fusion band to play original music. During this time he started to receive offers to compose for radio & circus. Commissions for TV & film soon followed.

In 1983 he furthered his studies of contemporary music in the Netherlands.

From 1987 to 1992 he was a clarinettist with the Australia Ensemble resident at the University of New South Wales.

In 1992 he joined guitarist John Williams's group "Attacca" as a performer & composer for tours of the United Kindom & Australia. Since then he has given his primary attention to composition.

His film credits include the feature films MISS POTTER, BABE, BABE - PIG IN THE CITY, CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION,

A LITTLE BIT OF SOUL, THE NUGGET and the Imax films ANTARCTICA, IMAGINE, THE EDGE & SOLARMAX.

His romantic score for the Beatrix Potter biopic Miss Potter won "Feature Film Score of the Year" & "Best Soundtrack Album" at the 2007 APRA / AGSC Screen Music Awards.

The films Babe & Miss Potter were both international hits, being No. I at the box office in many territories around the world.

His television credits include documentaries, telemovies, news themes & station idents.

Westlake's work has been widely performed & has earned numerous awards, including the Gold Medal at the New York International Radio Festival & several APRA & Screen Composer Guild awards for his film & concert music.

The feature film Babe won the Golden Globe Award in 1996 for "best feature musical/comedy".

His conducting debut was with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in 1997.

His works have been performed by :

John Williams, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, The Takacs Quartet, The Australia Ensemble, Michael Kieran Harvey, Synergy Percussion, Amsterdam Percussion Ensemble, Trilok Gurtu, New York Percussion Quartet, Craig Ogden, Slava Grigoryan, Leonard Grigoryan, Timothy Kain, Karin Schaupp, , Goldner String Quartet, Elektra String Quartet, Macquarie Trio, Sydney Symphony, Melbourne Symphony, Tasmanian Symphony, The Queensland Orchestra, West Australia Symphony, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Saffire, Guitartrek, Ogden Tanner, The Seymour Group, AustralianVirtuosi, The Academy of Melbourne, Simon Tedeschi, Ensemble Aark, Percadu, Rebecca Lagos, & Catherine McCorkill,

& conducted by :

Kent Nagano, Paul Daniel, Richard Hickox, Markus Stenz, Ola Rudner, David Porcelijn, Yaron Traub, Jean Louis Forestier, Richard Gill, Brett Kelly, Benjamin Wallfisch,

David Stanhope, Vladimir Verbitsky, Andrew Litton, Michael Christie & John Demain.

His opus one, Omphalo Centric Lecture (1984) for percussion quartet has become one of the most frequently performed & recorded works in the percussion repertoire by groups in the USA, Japan, Europe & Australia.

In 2004 Nigel Westlake was awarded the "HC Coombs Creative Arts Fellowship" at the Australian National University.

Current commissions for 2008/09 include orchestral & solo works, music for dance & feature film scores.

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