Patrick Doyle

About

Since joining Kenneth Branagh's Renaissance Theatre Company as composer and music director in 1987, Patrick Doyle has established himself at the forefront of film and theatre composition on both sides of the Atlantic with such award-winning scores (available from Sony Classical) as Hamlet (directed by Kenneth Branagh) (SK 62857) and Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility (SK 62258).

Most recently, Doyle has completed the soundtrack to the film Love's Labour's Lost (SK 89004), which is due for release on Sony Classical in the spring.

He has also composed "A Face in the Lake" for the Sony Classical project Listen to the Storyteller: A Trio of Musical Tales from Around the World (SK 60283), a collection of three musical stories with narration. Wynton Marsalis and Edgar Meyer also contributed works, one of which features Joshua Bell as violin soloist. Kate Winslet, Graham Greene and Marsalis narrate.

Doyle wrote the score for East-West, a French film set against the bleak times of Stalin's Russia, starring Sandrine Bonnaire, Catherine Deneuve and Oleg Menshikov. The director is Régis Wargnier, who also directed the Oscar nominated Indochine. Sony Classical released the soundtrack (SK 64429) in conjunction with international film openings this autumn.

The many awards and nominations Doyle has received for his scores include nominations for Golden Globe, Oscar, and BAFTA Awards for his score for Sense and Sensibility, as well as a nomination for his score to Branagh's Hamlet.

After graduating from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Doyle wrote his first score in 1978, and has since provided music for a host of radio, television, theatre and film productions, working with such notable directors as Judi Dench, Sir Derek Jacobi, and Geraldine McEwan. He travelled with the Renaissance Theatre Company's world tour, serving as composer and music director for their stage productions of King Lear and A Mid summer Night's Dream.

Doyle's other film credits include scores for Indochine starring Catherine Deneuve; Into the West and Donnie Brasco, both directed by Mike Newell; Frankenstein, starring Robert de Niro and directed by Kenneth Branagh; as well as Branagh's film version of Much Ado About Nothing.

In addition to his film scoring and incidental composition, Doyle occasionally finds time for other musical work. In 1990, HRH The Prince of Wales commissioned Doyle to write "The Thistle and The Rose", a song cycle for full choir, in honour of the Queen Mother's 90th birthday.

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