Nigel Osborne (born 23 June 1948) is a British composer, teacher and aid worker. He served as Reid Professor of MusicArts & Ents. (21 June 2012). 'The professor who rocked the establishment'. Herald Scotland. (United Kingdom) at the University of Edinburgh and has also taught at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover. Known for his extensive charity work supporting war traumatised children using music therapy techniques, especially in the Balkans during the Bosnian War,Carmack, Elizabeth. (January 2005). "Balkans’ Summer Music Camp 2004" . Cambridge Music Conference. (Puntižela/Pula, Croatia)Osborne, Nigel. (24 July 2013). "Nigel Osborne – Music and Trauma". The Musical Brain 2013 Conference. YouTube.Morris, Christian. (30 January 2018). 'Nigel Osborne Interview'. Composition Today. and in the Syrian conflict.Bradley, Jane. (8 December 2015). "Composer brings music to children in refugee camps". The Scotsman. (Scotland, UK)."Nigel Osborne". Cambridge Music Conference, 8 December 2015. United Kingdom. He speaks eight languages.Bunting, Madeleine. (1 October 2008). "The riddle of the rocks". The Guardian, United Kingdom.
Osborne was born in Manchester, England, to a Scottish family. He studied composition with Kenneth Leighton, Egon Wellesz, and Witold Rudziński. His compositions include the opera The Electrification of the Soviet Union,O'Mahony, John. (9 July 2002). "Notes from the underground". The Guardian, United Kingdom. Concerto for Flute and Chamber OrchestraOsborne, Nigel. (1980). "Nigel Osborne: Concerto". Universal Edition. City of London Sinfonia, United Kingdom. commissioned by the City of London Sinfonia, I am Goya,Osborne, Nigel. (1977). "I am Goya", Nigel Osborne (text by Andrei Voznesensky; English translation by Nigel Osborne)]. National Library of Australia. Remembering Esenin,Osborne, Nigel. "Nigel Osborne: Remembering Esenin". Universal Edition and Birth of the Beatles Symphony.Jones, Catherine. (14 January 2018). "Review: Celebrating Sgt Pepper Live at Echo Arena". Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Echo Arena. (Liverpool, England).
Osborne retired from his Edinburgh University position in 2012, and is now working internationally as freelance composer, arranger and aid worker. Currently working with war-traumatised children from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.Osborne, Nigel. (23 February 2023). “I don't know why I'm angry, I'm angry, I'm angry…”. VAN Magazine.Unbroken: composer uses music to help Ukrainians through trauma (requires login). (9 November 2023). Page 13: The Times
Career
Osborne studied composition with Egon Wellesz, first pupil of Arnold Schoenberg (1968–69), also with Kenneth Leighton (his predecessor as Reid Professor of Music at the University of Edinburgh) at Oxford University (1969–70), and later in Warsaw with Witold Rudziński (1970–71) where he also he worked in the Polish Radio Experimental Studio.Błaszczyk, Bolesław. (11 February 2014). "Polish Radio Experimental Studio: A Galaxy of Writings, Prints, and Sound". (Poland) From 1983 until 1985, while at the IRCAM in Paris, Osborne co-founded Contemporary Music Review"A Poetry of Reality Composing with Recorded Sound". Contemporary Music Review, 1985. (Paris, France) with Tod Machover. He held a special professorship at the University of Nottingham from 1978 to 1987, the Reid Chair and Dean of the Faculty of Music at Edinburgh University from 1989 to 2012, a senior professorship (C4) at the University of Hannover from 1996 to 1998 and head of faculty for the Vienna–Prague–Budapest Summer Academy (ISA) from 2007 to 2014. Currently professor emeritus at Edinburgh University, visiting professor in the drama faculty of Rijeka University and consultant to the Chinese Music Institute, Peking University."The Sound of Peking University Resounding through Scotland". 北京大学中国音乐学社. Douban, 19 December 2012. (Scotland and China). He has worked as visiting lecturer and examiner also at Harvard, UCLA, CalArts, Gedai and Toho Gakuen School of Music, Oxford, the Sorbonne and Bologna.(19 Apruk 2018). Art, War and Peace. Bournemouth University
Osborne's works have been performed internationally by Vienna Symphony, Moscow Symphony Orchestra, Leningrad Philharmonic, the Philharmonia of London, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Berlin Symphony, Glyndebourne, Opera Circus, Opera Factory, Scottish Opera and the Royal Opera House.Seckerson, Edward. (13 October 2004). "The Piano Tuner, Linbury Studio, Royal Opera House, London". The Independent. (United Kingdom). He has received, among numerous awards, a Netherlands Gaudeamus prize, the Opera Prize of the Radio Sussie Romande and Ville de Geneve, and the Koussevitzky Award of the Library of Congress Washington.
In the 1980s, Osborne composed a series of classic works for choreographer Richard Alston and Ballet Rambert."Richard Alston Choreochronicle". Richard Alston. Master of Music at the Shakespeare's Globe (1999–2000),The Tempest (2000). Shakespeare's Globe. (London, UK). and since 2000 has been house composer for Ulysses Theatre, Istria. Osborne has collaborated with directors Lenka Udovicki, Peter Sellars, David Pountney, Michael McCarthy and David Freeman, and with writers Samuel Beckett, Craig Raine, Eve Ensler, Jo Shapcott, Howard Barker, Ariel Dorfman, Tena Štivičić and Goran Simić, with notable actors Vanessa Redgrave, Annette Bening, Lynn Redgrave, Amanda Plummer, Rade Šerbedžija, Simon Callow, Ian McDiarmid and Janet Henfrey, also with artists and designers John Hoyland, Dick Smith, George Tsypin, David Roger, Bjanka Adzic Ursulov and Peter Mumford. Singers and soloists with whom Osborne has collaborated include pioneers of contemporary music, such as Jane Manning, Linda Hirst, Liz Lawrence and Omar Ebrahim, alongside long-standing collaborations with artists Florian Kitt, Ernst Kovacic and the Hebrides Ensemble. Osborne's film documentary credits include BAFTA-winning and -nominated collaborations with director Samir Mehanović, an EMMY-winning collaboration with the BBC, and the film Dans un océan d'images with Helen Doyle and InformAction, Montreal. He has a special interest in Arabic, Indian and Chinese music.Colwyn Trevarthen, Maya Gratier, Nigel Osborne. "The human nature of culture and education". Wiley Online Library.
Osborne has pioneered methods of using music and the creative arts to support children who are victims of conflict."Lola War Child powerpoint". SlideShare. This approach was developed during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992–95), and since then this work has been implemented widely in the Balkan region,"An Interview with Nigel Osborne" . Voices (a world forum for Music Therapy)] the Caucasus,"History". War Child Holland. the Middle East,"Composer brings music to children in refugee camps". The Scotsman. (Scotland) East Africa, South East Asia and India."Indian classical music is powerful in therapeutic processes". The Times of India He was also awarded the Freedom Prize of the Peace Institute, Sarajevo, for his work for Bosnian children during the siege of the city."Scots composer to be honoured for peace work". Sunday Herald. (Scotland)"Nigel Osborne sutra u sarajevskom 'Zvonu. Bosnian National Network, 28 February 2016. Osborne has worked actively in human rights initiatives, Workers' Defence Committee in Poland (1970–89), Citizens' Forum and the Jazz Section with Václav Havel in former Czechoslovakia (1987–1989), for Syrian refugee support organisations. During the genocide"Nigel Osborne Interview". Composition Today. Osborne worked directly for the Government of Bosnia-Herzegovina. From 2012 until 2014, Osborne served as co-chair of the Global Agenda Committee for Arts in Society for the World Economic Forum."Nigel Osborne". World Economic Forum.
In 2004 Osborne began an artistic relationship with 'Opera Circus', a chamber opera and music theatre company based in West Dorset UKOpera Circus during which the Bosnian sevdah opera Differences in Demolitions was produced, with Bosnian poet Goran Simić and Scottish conductor William Conway.Jeal, Erica. (12 July 2007). Differences in Demolition. The Guardian Opera Circus toured through BiH in 2017.
Osborne has been active in supporting the development of new music technologies, for example the Skoog, and is co-inventor with Paul Robertson of X-System,"X-System: The Affect of Music" Our Team. an 'informatic modelling of the musical brain'. In December 2017 he received the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors' (BASCA) Award for Inspiration. Osborne was awarded both the Queen's Prize and Music Industry Prize for innovation in education, and was recently made honorary fellow of the Educational Institute of Scotland. He is a director of the Scottish educational development company, Tapestry Partnership."Tapestry Partnership". (Scotland).
In 2017, Osborne was commissioned by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra to arrange Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band for the ‘It Was Fifty Years Ago Today’ concerts with the Bootleg Beatles performed to capacity crowds at the Royal Albert Hall"It Was Fifty Years Ago Today – A Concert celebrating Sgt Pepper and the Summer of Love". Bootleg Beatles. Royal Albert Hall, 1 June 2017. (London, UK) and Echo Arena Liverpool.Osborne, Nigel. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band 'It Was 50 Years Ago Today. Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. YouTube. (England, UK).Jones, Catherine. (1 June 2017). "Review: It Was 50 Years Ago Today ****". Arts City Liverpool. (United Kingdom).
Publications Scientific and scholarly publications Osborne, Nigel. (23 February 2017). Handbook of Musical Identities - "The Identities of Sevda: from Graeco-Arabic medicine to music therapy". Editors: MacDonald, Hargreaves and Miell. . Oxford University Press. (Oxford, UK and New York). Osborne, Nigel. (21 February 2017) Love, Rhythm and Chronobiology in Rhythms of Relating in Children's Therapies – 'Connecting Creatively with Vulnerable Children'. Editors: Daniel and Trevarthen. . Jessica Kingsley Publishers. (London, UK and Philadelphia, USA). Osborne, Nigel. (2014). "The Plenum Brain in Unbribable Bosnia and Herzegovina". p. 174. Editor: D. Arsenijević South East European integration perspectives. ISBN print: , ISBN online: . Nomos Verlag. (Baden-Baden, Germany).
Osborne, Nigel. (July 2013). "Resilience and recovery – violence, disasters and the arts, presentation, Global Alliance for Arts and Health". APPG on Agriculture and Food for Development. Library of Congress. (Washington DC, USA). Osborne, Nigel. (23 April 2012). "Neuroscience and real world practice: music as a therapeutic resource for children in zones of conflict". New York Academy of Sciences. Neurosciences and Music. (New York, USA). Osborne, Nigel. 2009. "Music for children in zones of conflict and postconflict: a psychobiological approach". In Communicative Musicality. Editors: S. Malloch and C. Trevarthen. . Oxford University Press and New York Academy of Sciences. (Oxford, UK and New York, USA).
Selected publications University of York Music Press
Source:Osborne, Nigel. "Nigel Osborne House composer". University of York Music Press 2013 The Painters in my Garden for three flutes A Prayer and Two Blessings for SATB choir 2011 Botanical Studies for oboe and percussion 2010 Concertino for Violin and Orchestra for solo violin and orchestra Differences in Demolition (A sevdah opera) I am not here for voice and piano (only available in Songs for the Twenty-First Century) Journey to the End of the Night for oboe, percussion and electronics SMTBarBar for soli, clarinet, percussion, violin, viola, cello, accordion and machine sounds Stargazing string quartet 2009 The Birth of Naciketas guitar concertante for guitar, Indian violin, tabla, string quartet, double bass and percussion 2009 Afro-Scottish for children's choir, SATB choir and jazz orchestra Angel-Nebulae for TTTB soli East for symphony orchestra