Biography
Edward Nesbit’s works have been performed by many of the UK’s leading orchestras and ensembles. He has recently composed works for the London Sinfonietta (Viola Concerto), East London Music Group (Antigone) and Melos Sinfonia (Near Paradise). Previous collaborations include those with BBC Symphony Orchestra (In spite of the mere objectiveness of things), Cellophony (The Burial of the Stars), Britten Sinfonia (Lifesize Gods), London Symphony Orchestra (Parallels) and the Philharmonia Orchestra (Violin Concerto). His work has been performed at venues across the UK including Wigmore Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Barbican Hall, and has been broadcast numerous times on BBC Radio 3.
Further afield, his work has been performed by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (Violin Concerto), NOSPR, Poland (Piano Concerto), the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra (In spite of the mere objectiveness of things) and the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Quebec (Chants of Night).
Edward won the first Verbier Festival Academy Composer Prize, leading to a commission for Night Dances, premiered at the 2013 Verbier Festival. This was followed by To Dance on Sands, commissioned for the 2014 Verbier Festival and premiered by cellists Gautier Capuçon, Adrian Brendel, Amanda Forsyth, Clemens Hagen, Mischa Maisky, István Várdai, Kyril Zlotnikov and Lionel Cottet. More recently, Chorales, etc was commissioned by Tanglewood Music Center and premiered at the 2017 Tanglewood Music Festival.
To Dance on Sands appears on the album Verbier Festival: Best of 2014, released on the Erato label, and Parallels appears on LSO Live’s album Panufnik Legacies. His first portrait CD, with Ruby Hughes and The Choir of King’s College London conducted by Joseph Fort, is due to be released by Delphian Records in April 2022.
Nesbit has a particular interest in vocal music. He has worked with singers including Benedict Nelson (Songs of Sorrow), Ruby Hughes (Mass), Rosie Middleton (Antigone), Jessica Summers (In Antarctica, Pursuing the Horizon), Sylvie Gallant (Aedh’s Lovesong), Anna Dennis (In the Desert) and Anna Patalong (pictured, A Pretence of Wit). A Pretence of Wit was shortlisted for the vocal category of the 2013 British Composer Awards.
In addition to numerous song cycles, he has written an increasingly extensive catalogue of choral music including a Mass and a set of evensong anthems, Evening Psalms.
Born in 1986, Edward Nesbit graduated from Cambridge University with a first class honours degree in music. Edward then studied for his Masters with Julian Anderson at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and for a PhD with Sir George Benjamin at King’s College London, during which time he won the 2010 Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize.
He was Composer in Residence at Queen Mary University of London in 2015-21, and since 2018 he has been Lecturer in Composition at King’s College London.