Possessing a hugely unique and inventive way with composition and song writing, David is an award-winning composer who has scored more than 100 film and television projects. These range from feature films, through animated kids shows to landmark documentary series. He is just as comfortable writing a full orchestral score as he is creating a lo-fi textural piece. Being an accomplished multi-instrumentalist (piano, guitars & bass, clarinet & sax, voice), David is always able to bring real and organic elements into his scores.
Ever since he started composing, David has shown an unusual degree of musical eclecticism. As a teenager, he wrote an hour-long Requiem Mass for choir and orchestra (mostly during GSCE maths lessons), while at the same time being the guitarist and songwriter in a pop band with a cult local following.
David read Music at New College, Oxford, where he played in bands and continued to write orchestral music at the same time as experimenting with electro-acoustics. After scoring his first short film, Inside Out Man (the winner of Best Film at Kino 1999), he decided to pursue music for picture at the National Film and Television School, where he received a diploma in Screen Music.
While at film school, David worked on a wide range of short films, including many animations. He worked several times with documentary maker, Emily James, writing music and lyrics for a number of ‘musical documentaries’, including Wag the Dogma, A Brief History of Cuba in D minor, and The Luckiest Nut in the World, all of which went on to win awards. In these projects, David combined humorous lyrics and quirky (but very catchy) tunes, with serious factual subject matter. This unique juxtaposition also led to the commissioning of ArtSongs, a CD of songs about art commissioned by the Tate Gallery, as well as a series of songs for BBC’s Newsnight in the run-up to the 2005 General Election.
David created epic scores for the feature films, Day of Wrath (a historical drama starring Christopher Lambert) and Silence Becomes You (a thriller starring Alicia Silverstone and Sienna Guillory), using a combination of real orchestra and samples.
In the last five years David has cemented his reputation in two areas in particular: he has created intricate and unique soundtracks for a number of landmark BBC documentary series, including Wonders of Life (with Brian Cox), Richard Hammond’s Invisible Worlds, Inside the Human Body and Britain from Above (with Andrew Marr). All these scores have combined epic orchestral themes with electronic and frequently experimental styles.
With the other half of his musical brain, David has become one of the go-to composers to create strong memorable songs and scores for animation. After working on the music for Charlie & Lola (which, unusually for a kids’ show, won Best Original Score at the RTS Craft Awards in 2007), David wrote the soundtracks for The Cat in Hat Knows A Lot About That! (a hit show around the world, the title theme of which was also nominated for an Emmy), and Mike the Knight (a global success for Hit Entertainment).
He is currently working on a second series of Mike the Knight, a brand new show for CBeebies, called Q Pootle 5 (airing Autumn 2013), and a series of ‘toons’, based on the global app phenomenon Angry Birds, for Rovio Entertainment.
