Nigel John Hess was born on the 22nd July 1953, in Somerset England. The composer is probably best known for his work for the small screen although he has also scored feature films, written for concert hall performance, and provided music for the theatre. If you think you are not familiar with his music, then you are certainly mistaken as Hess scored some of the most popular TV shows in recent years. Campion, Maigret, Wycliffe, Dangerfield, Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, Badger and Just William among them and provided the haunting soundtrack for the movie Ladies in Lavender.
The composer also worked on the play The Secret of Sherlock Holmes, providing it with emotive music that was performed by strings and solo violin. a six minute arrangement of some of his Sherlock Holmes music can be heard on Screens and Stages an LP record that has now been made available on digital platforms. In fact, there are a handful of the composer’s recordings available on the likes of Spotify and Apple Music with various tracks on you tube. Its worth going on one of these to check out the composer’s releases.
Hess was educated at Weston-super-Mare Grammar School for Boys, and went on to study music at Cambridge University, where he was Music Director of the famous Footlights Revue Company. He has since worked extensively as a composer and conductor. While Hess was in house composer for the Royal Shakespeare Company he contributed twenty scores for RSC productions, and highlights from his Shakespeare scores have been recorded and performed by the RPO in concert as The Food of Love, hosted by Dame Judi Dench and Sir Patrick Stewart.
His most recent RSC scores were for Christopher Luscombe’s productions of Love’s Labour’s Lost and Love’s Labour’s Won. Hess was awarded the New York Drama Desk Award for ‘Outstanding Music in a Play’ for the productions of Much Ado About Nothing and Cyrano de Bergerac on Broadway. His most recent theatre scores have been written for Shakespeare’s Globe in London and include The Merry Wives of Windsor, Romeo and Juliet, Henry VIII, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, and Nell Gwynn.
Hess has also composed concert music, particularly for symphonic wind band, including commissions from Royal Air Force Music Services and the Band of the Coldstream Guards. In July 2007 we saw the première of Hess’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra which was commissioned by the Prince of Wales in memory of his grandmother.
The soloist was internationally renowned pianist Lang Lang. In many ways the music of Nigel Hess evokes the style of Sir William Walton, just take a listen to his March Barnes Wallis from his album entitled The Way of Light and you will hear what I mean.
The composer’s other commissions include a new ballet based on The Old Man of Lochnagar, a children’s story written by the Prince of Wales in 1980, which is also included on The Way of Light album in the form of three suites, which were commissioned and premiered by the National Youth Ballet of Great Britain. A Christmas Overture, commissioned by John Rutter and premiered by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall, and A Celebration Overture, commissioned by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra for its 175th anniversary and premiered at the Royal Albert Hall in 2015. Are also on the album.
The composer is the great nephew of British pianist Dame Myra Hess. He named his music publishing company Myra Music in her honour. In 2023, Hess was announced as one of the composers who would each create a brand-new piece for the Coronation of Charles III and Camilla. Hess is a talented composer and has the ability to write music for any genre and any occasion, in short, he is a national musical treasure, his styles of music being varied and always hauntingly effective and beautiful.
MOVIE MUSIC INTERNATIONAL. (MMI) . 