Saturday, March 7th will feature a North American premiere of Rebecca Dale’s reflective Materna Requiem. If you’re thinking that you don’t know the music of Rebecca Dale, we’re telling you this is a must hear!
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Rebecca Dale is a British composer of screen and concert music. Born in 1985, Rebecca started composing from a very young age, completing her first full musical at age 10 and piano concerto at 15. After school music scholarships, she studied at Oxford University (New College) and the National Film and Television School, and holds an MA with distinction in Composing for Film & Television. Her 2015 debut self-release for choir and orchestra, I’ll Sing, rose up the classical charts and was Classic FM’s Choral Classic of the Week. Her next release, Soay, spent five weeks at Classical No.1 and was named Classic FM 2016 album of the year. In 2017, Dale won a coveted place on the Sundance Composer Lab.
Check out this recording of Soay released in January 2019!
Most recently her track ‘Winter’, commissioned by bestselling vocal group Voces8 for their album of the same name, was described by Gramophone magazine as a “masterpiece”. A follow up album is due for release this year. Dale also recently composed original music for the BBC Christmas drama series, Little Women.
Dale has been involved in projects for 20th Century Fox, Disney, Working Title, The Weinstein Co. and the BBC, and her score for Crossing The Line was nominated for best original music in feature film at the 2017 international Music & Sound Awards. She has recorded and conducted orchestral works at Abbey Road, Air Studios, George Lucas’s Skywalker Ranch and Fox Studios, Hollywood. Dale’s Full length album, Requiem, was released by Decca Classics in August 2018.
Hailed by Classic FM as “one of today’s most exciting young composers” and “a household name in years to come”, Rebecca Dale made history when in 2018 she became the first female composer to sign to Universal Music’s Decca Classics label, and the first woman to sign to Decca Publishing. In September her debut album recorded with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Requiem For My Mother, smashed into the UK album charts at No.1 in the specialist Classical charts.
Here is a sneak peak of Materna Requiem – the Pie Jesu. The intention of this movement is to capture the feeling of a father singing to their newborn.
Originally mentored by Golden Globe-nominated Alex Heffes (“Last King of Scottland”) and Emmy-nominated Maurizio Malagnini (“Call the Midwife”), Rebecca has worked on films like Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, director Stephen Frears’ The Program, action film The Take starring Idris Elba, BBC period drama series The Paradise and The Secret Agent, famous US Miniseries remake Roots, Touching the Void Live and BBC’s Frozen Planet Live and Disney’s Queen of Katwe directed by Mira Nair. She was a judge for Northern Ireland’s inaugural Royal Television Society Programme Awards, is a Berlinale Talents alumna and BAFTA Crew participant, and has been a regular interview guest on BBC Radio 3.
As a concert composer Rebecca has written for numerous classical artists and ensembles including Mari & Hakon Samuelson, the London Mozart Players, the Scottish Festival Orchestra, the Latvian Opera Orchestra, musicians of the London Symphony Orchestra, percussionst Joby Burgess and cellists Richard Harwood, Benjamin Hughes and Oliver Coates. She is a fellow of the prestigious MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire (notable composer alumni include Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland), and has been an associate composer with the London Symphony Orchestra on its Soundhub programme. She also directs and writes extensively for choral groups, was commissioned by Canterbury Cathedral Girls Choir for their debut album, and was 2017-18 Composer in Residence for the London Oriana Choir as part of its five15 project. I’ll Sing was performed at Cadogan Hall with ensemble and orchestra from the London opera houses, as part of the charity concert for Grenfell Tower.
She plays the violin and piano, and likes odd socks.
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