Composer: Joby Talbot

Born in 1971 in Wimbledon, Joby Talbot initially studied composition at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College and then privately with Brian Elias. Talbot was a pupil of Simon Bainbridge and Robert Saxton at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where he won the Dorothy Adams String Quartet competition and was awarded the Wainwright Memorial Bursary. His percussion piece Doublethink was published by the Guildhall as part of its young composers' series.

In 1995, Talbot studied with Louis Andriessen at Dartington where his music was performed by Icebreaker. Since then his work has been performed by the Britten Sinfonia, the Brunel Ensemble, the London Contemporary Percussion Trio, Crouch End Festival Chorus and the BBC Philharmonic whose performance of his octet Animisation was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 as part of the 1996 Lloyds Bank composers' workshop. Talbot was one of four composers chosen to write a new piece for the Philharmonic and the resultant work Luminescence for string orchestra was premiered in 1997 under Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and has since been twice broadcast on Radio 3.

In 1993 Talbot first met Neil Hannon and began arranging and performing with his group The Divine Comedy. Since then the band has released three albums and four top 30 singles, the fourth album which was co-written by Talbot, "Fin de Siecle " was released in August 1998. Talbot and Hannon also collaborated on the theme music for BBC TV's "Tomorrow's World" and are currently writing songs for the forthcoming Ute Lemper album. Other works for TV written by Talbot include the theme music for "Young Musician of the Year" the score for a short film for BBC 2 called "Queen's Park Story" and the music for the highly successful BBC 2 comedy series "The League of Gentlemen" which was awarded the Golden Rose at the Montreux International TV Festival.

In 1997, Talbot and the Divine Comedy collaborated with Michael Nyman at the Flux Festival and were awarded Edinburgh Festival's Critics Choice and in 1998 he wrote a piece for the group "Instrumental" which was performed at London's Jazz Café.

Recent concert works include a percussion concerto for Julian Warburton and the Brunel Ensemble entitled Incandescence, Lovers Ink for strings written for the Sarum Orchestra and Falling for electric cello which will be toured in the US by Philip Sheppard.

In 1998 Talbot's percussion concerto Incandescence was performed by Evelyn Glennie as part of the London Sinfonietta's CMN tour and the chamber version premiered at the Festival van Vlaanderen in Belgium.

He has recently completed a new score to Alfred Hitchcock's silent movie The Lodger; has co-written the next Ute Lemper album and has been commissioned to write the music for a new series of "The League of Gentlemen"

Joby Talbot is published exclusively by Chester Music Ltd. Chester Music are delighted to announce that Joby Talbot has been awarded the Royal Television Society Award for Best Title Music. Joby received the award at a ceremony held at the London Hilton on 22nd November 2002, for his music to the BBC comedy series "The League of Gentlemen".

Joby's latest career move is composing the soundtrack to "Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy".

Surrey Brass are fortunate to have had the opportunity to premiere a new work, "Pitch Black" by Joby Talbot.

About Joby Talbot