Patrick Doyle

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Patrick Doyle
Taken at the Workshop Sound and Music for Film Foundation in Madrid 12/05
Background information
Birth name	Patrick Doyle
Born	April 6, 1953 (1953-04-06) (age 55)
Origin	Uddingston, South Lanarkshire, Scotland
Genre(s)	Film scores
Occupation(s)	Composer
Years active	1989-Present

Patrick Doyle (born April 6, 1953, Uddingston, South Lanarkshire, Scotland) is an Academy Award nominated Scottish musician and film score composer. His collaboration with Kenneth Branagh and the Shakespearean community is well known, but his scoring talents are versatile, and he has composed orchestral scores for a variety of films and film genres, from Disney's Shipwrecked to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. In the latter half of the 1990s, he utilised a combination of synthesizers, chorus, and solo vocals, along with a traditional orchestra.

[edit] Career

Doyle graduated in 1974 from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Glasgow, where he studied piano and singing. His first music score was written in 1978, and subsequently, he has written the music for a host of radio, television, theatre and film productions. He lives in Surrey with his wife, Lesley Howard, and his four children.

Doyle joined the Renaissance Theatre Company in 1987 as composer and musical director, with an original score for Kenneth Branagh's acclaimed staging of Twelfth Night at Riverside Studios in December 1987, which he directed on stage. In 1988 he composed the music for their Renaissance Shakespeare on the Road season of productions of Hamlet, As You Like It, and Much Ado About Nothing for debut directors Derek Jacobi, Geraldine McEwan, and Judi Dench. A year later Doyle again worked with director Judi Dench on both the theatre and television productions of Look Back in Anger, presented first in Belfast then London, starring Branagh as Jimmy Porter and Emma Thompson as Alison. He then completed a world tour with the Renaissance, for which he was both composer and musical director for the company's productions of King Lear and A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Director Kenneth Branagh commissioned Doyle to write the film score for the Renaissance Film Company production of Henry V. Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra were engaged to perform the music. A choral piece from this score, "Non nobis Domine", was awarded the 1989 Ivor Novello Award for Best Film Theme. In 1990, Charles, 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. In 1991, Doyle wrote the score for the Paramount feature Dead Again also directed by Branagh, and the score was nominated for a 1991 Golden Globe Award.

Doyle's 1995 score for Sense and Sensibility was nominated for a Golden Globe, an Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score, and a BAFTA nomination for Best Film Score. In 1996, Hamlet, a four hour, 70mm epic directed by Kenneth Branagh for Castle Rock, received an Academy Award nomination. In 1997, Sony Classical commissioned him to write a piece of music to accompany a children's story entitled The Face In The Lake. This piece was premiered in February 1998 at Carnegie Hall in New York City, along with two other stories with music written by Wynton Marsalis & Edgar Meyer. Sony Classical released a CD of the music, narrated by Kate Winslet, together with a companion children's book published by Viking Press.

Doyle's style of classical composition and history as an actor and stage hand makes him a very knowledgeable musical artist. He has appeared (and sung) in numerous films and is always seeking to lend his diverse skills to more projects. The original themes he both composes and performs vocals for can be heard on the albums for Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing and As You Like It.

In November 1997, Doyle was diagnosed with leukemia, from which he has recovered. Nonetheless, he completed his score for Great Expectations and continued to work on Quest for Camelot during treatment. By 1998, his career had returned to full swing. He completed the score for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, taking over from John Williams. He also wrote the music for the Eragon soundtrack (released December 15, 2006).