When Michael Nyman published his study Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond (1974), he could hardly have foreseen his own contribution to that ‘beyond’. Disaffected with modernism, Nyman had abandoned composition, however in 1976 Harrison Birtwistle commissioned him to provide music for a production of Goldoni’s Il Campiello, for which Nyman assembled “the loudest unamplified street band I could imagine”.

Nyman kept the Campiello Band together after the play’s run had finished; the line-up mutated, amplification was added and the name changed to the Michael Nyman Band. This became the laboratory in which Nyman has formulated his compositional style around strong melodies, flexible yet assertive rhythms, and precisely articulated ensemble playing. More than thirty years on, the Michael Nyman Band still tours the world, playing to huge audiences.

If works for the Michael Nyman Band have dominated his output, the composer has written for the widest possible variety of ensembles and situations. His numerous orchestral and chamber works are widely performed; as are his stage works, notably the chamber operas The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat (1986), Man and Boy: Dada (2002) and Love Counts (2005). He has provided music for such distinguished choreographers as Siobhan Davies, Shobana Jeyasingh and Christopher Wheeldon; he has also written music for a fashion show, the opening of a high-speed rail link and a computer game.

Nyman’s music has reached its largest audience by way of his film scores, most famously for Peter Greenaway (eleven movies including The Draughtsman’s Contract), Jane Campion (The Piano), Neil Jordan (The End of the Affair) Michael Winterbottom (four movies including Wonderland and 9 Songs), and most recently Laurence Dunmore (The Libertine).

In recent years Nyman has collaborated with Gidon Kremer, Hanif Kureishi and the Singapore Chinese Orchestra. Major concert works in 2007 include commissions for the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, the Great North Run Cultural Programme, the Venice Biennale and a cello concerto for Nina Kotova, while his latest film score is for Gina Kim’s Never Forever.

In 2005 Nyman launched his own record label – MN Records. The label has offered instrumental albums, operas and original soundtrack recordings, plus definitive new editions of his most celebrated soundtrack work.  The eleventh CD on the label is Mozart 252, a collection of Mozart based scores to be released on March 3rd 2008, which will be shortly followed by Eight Lust Songs, a soprano and orchestra set to Aretino’s erotic poems, in May 2008.  Full details of all releases can be found at www.mnrecords.com.

At every turn Nyman has proved eminently practical. Not for him the ivory tower anguish of a tormented composer; rather an openness to collaboration, a spry sense of humour, a literate imagination and an instinctive ability to engage a highly diverse audience.