Nigel Westlake
Westlake has played in fusion bands and soundtrack sessions, with Australia’s leading instrumental groups, and as a soloist with orchestras and classical ensembles in Australia and in major cities worldwide, from London and Paris to Tokyo, Beijing and New York.
Nigel Westlake’s professional career as a clarinettist began in 1975, at the age of seventeen. His studies have taken in contemporary performance, composition, screen composition, orchestration and conducting with leading practitioners in Australia and Europe.
His film work includes the features Babe, Babe – Pig in the City, Children of the Revolution, A Little Bit of Soul and The Nugget, and the IMAX films Antarctica, Imagine, The Edge and Solarmax. Television credits range across documentaries, telemovies, news themes and station idents; several of his compositions were heard in international broadcasts during the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
Awards for his writing include the Gold Medal at the New York International Radio Festival and several APRA and Screen Composer Guild awards for film and concert music. The feature Babe won the Golden Globe in 1996 for best musical or comedy.
His conducting debut was with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in 1997; he has since led film scoring sessions and performances in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Tasmania.
His music has been taken up by John Williams, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Australia Ensemble, Slava Grigoryan, Synergy Percussion, the Amsterdam Percussion Ensemble, Trilok Gurtu, the New York Percussion Ensemble, Michael Kieran Harvey, and Australia’s leading orchestras and soloists.
His opus 1, Omphalo Centric Lecture (1984) for percussion quartet, has become one of the most frequently performed and recorded works in the percussion repertoire, in the USA, Japan, Europe and Australia.
In 2004 he was awarded the HC Coombs Creative Arts Fellowship at the Australian National University.
Nigel Westlake is featured on the following titles
Nigel Westlake: The Hinchinbrook Riffs
Tall Poppies presents The Hinchinbrook Riffs: five chamber works by Nigel Westlake, whose amiable, approachable style has won him a wide and loyal audience in Australia and beyond.
The Edge
This music was written for an IMAX film about the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. The film concerns itself with the environment, the ancient Aboriginal presence and the recently discovered prehistoric Wollemi Pines.
Producer
Onomatopoeia
Long-awaited performances of Nigel Westlake’s most acclaimed chamber works, with outstanding Australian players. One of Tall Poppies’ most successful releases.
Composer
Producer: Producer
Antarctica: The Film Music
Australia's first IMAX film, scored by Nigel Westlake with music that captures the awesome spaces of the ice and the delights of the local fauna. Soloists include David Pereira (cello), Dene Olding (violin), Timothy Kain (guitar) and Christine Douglas (soprano).
Producer: Music Production
Performing as Australia Ensemble
The Australia Ensemble, resident at the University of New South Wales since its founding in 1980, is widely recognised as Australia’s leading chamber music ensemble. Seven principal instrumentalists form its core, joined by guests for standard repertoire and unusual combinations.
Schubert
Schubert's best-loved chamber works: the great String Quintet in C and The Shepherd on the Rock, played by The Australia Ensemble with guest artists Jennifer Bates (soprano) and David Pereira (cello).
Café Concertino
The Australia Ensemble, Australia's foremost chamber group and in residence at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, presents commissioned and core Australian chamber works.
Composer
Compositions by Nigel Westlake also appear on
Six Fish
Guitar Trek began in 1987 and broke new ground for the guitar with a special “family” of instruments: standard guitars by Greg Smallman, treble guitars by Eugene Philp and Greg Smallman, and baritone and bass guitars by Graham Caldersmith.
Electric Cello
David Pereira plays solo Australian cello works, each scored for cello with pre-recorded tape or delay. The Wesley-Smith and Ford pieces are world premiere recordings.
Mirrors of Fire
Every now and then a CD comes along that makes you glad to be alive: the music is so infectious and the performances brilliant. This is one such disc, featuring Timothy Kain, Australia’s virtuoso guitarist.
Producer: Producer
An Australian Collection
Nineteen tracks drawn from the Tall Poppies catalogue, chosen to show the range and depth of Australian composition and performance across the label’s first decade.
Synergy With Samuels
This CD grew from a concert collaboration between Australia’s best-known percussion quartet and America’s finest vibraphonist, Dave Samuels. Together they cook up a storm.
Composer
Producer
Nigel Westlake also appears on
Ecstatic Dances: Chamber Music, Vol. 1
One of Tall Poppies' most successful releases, this collection of Ross Edwards's chamber music sets his meditative sacred style beside the buoyant energy of his Maninya pieces.
Songs of Sea and Sky
Nigel Westlake and David Bollard present Australian music for clarinet and piano by Peter Sculthorpe, Ross Edwards, Mark Isaacs, Miriam Hyde, Margaret Sutherland and Don Banks.
Producer: Producer
Nigel Westlake is a member of
Australia Ensemble
The Australia Ensemble, resident at the University of New South Wales since its founding in 1980, is widely recognised as Australia’s leading chamber music ensemble. Seven principal instrumentalists form its core, joined by guests for standard repertoire and unusual combinations.