Debbie Wiseman facts for kids

Debbie Wiseman, who has an award called the OBE, is a well-known British composer. She was born on May 10, 1963. Debbie writes music for movies, TV shows, and concert halls. She also leads orchestras as a conductor and presents shows on radio and television.

About Debbie Wiseman

Early Life and Education

Debbie Wiseman was born in Belsize Park, a part of north west London. She went to the Henrietta Barnett School. From a young age, she studied music at the Trinity College of Music Junior Department. Later, she focused on playing the piano and learning how to write music, called composition, at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Teaching and Special Awards

Debbie Wiseman is now a visiting professor at the Royal College of Music. This means she teaches students there. In 2008, she wrote a piece of music called Different Voices. The famous Royal Philharmonic Orchestra played it for the first time as part of their 60th birthday party. This music is still played often today.

Debbie has received special awards for her work. She was given the Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) award in 2004 for helping the film industry. Later, in 2018, she was promoted to an Officer of the same Order (OBE) for her contributions to music. She also has special honorary degrees from Trinity College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In 2015, she earned a Doctor of Music degree from the University of Sussex. In 2020, she became a Fellow of the Royal College of Music.

Debbie Wiseman's Music Work

Music for Movies and TV Shows

Debbie Wiseman has written music for many popular films. Some of these include Tom and Viv, Wilde, and Arsène Lupin. Her music for Arsène Lupin won an award for Best Score for a Foreign Language Film in 2005. She also composed the music for Flood and Lesbian Vampire Killers.

She has also created music for many TV shows. These include Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators, Dickensian, and Wolf Hall. Her music for Lost Christmas helped the show win an International Emmy Award in 2013. Other TV shows she has worked on are Father Brown, The Coroner, and Land Girls. Her music for Warriors won a Royal Television Society Award in 2000.

Music in the 2000s

Debbie Wiseman's album Wilde Stories was nominated for a Grammy Award. Music from this album was used in animated films for Channel 4 in 2003. Debbie even led the National Symphony Orchestra to play this music live while two of the films were shown.

In 2007, she received the Gold Badge of Merit from the British Academy of Composers & Songwriters. In 2008, she created a CD called Different Voices with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. This album featured narration by Stephen Fry and singing by Hayley Westenra.

Music in the 2010s

In 2010, listeners of Classic FM voted her music for the film Wilde as number 12 in their Top 100 Movie Music Chart.

In 2011, Debbie presented a radio show about composer Joseph Horowitz. She also appeared on a special Christmas radio show called Your Desert Island Discs. Since 2011, she has released her own albums. Her first solo album, Piano Stories, reached number 10 on the UK Classical Artist Album Chart. She also hosted a Channel 4 TV series called Backtracks, which looked at how music is used in films and TV.

In 2013, she presented a Radio 4 show called Scoring Father Brown. This show explained how she wrote the music for the BBC drama series. She also composed music for A Poet in New York, which was shown on BBC Two in 2014.

In 2015, Debbie wrote the main theme and other music for the BBC1 drama The Coroner. Her music for the BBC drama series Wolf Hall became number 1 on the UK's Classic FM chart in March 2015. The next year, it won awards for Best Composer and Best Original Composition.

Debbie Wiseman is the Composer in Residence for Classic FM. Her first album for Classic FM, The Musical Zodiac, reached number 2 on the UK Classical Chart in 2016. She also composed the music for the 2017 film Edie. She wrote new music for Viking Cruises and was honored as the Godmother for their new ship, Viking Herja, in 2017.

Her second album for Classic FM, The Glorious Garden, was made with Alan Titchmarsh. It was released in March 2018 and was number 1 on the UK Classical Chart for three weeks.

Music in the 2020s

Debbie Wiseman's album The Mythos Suite, created with Stephen Fry, reached number 1 on the UK classical charts in February 2020.

Her album The Music of Kings and Queens, which celebrated the Queen's 95th birthday, also went to number 1 in June 2021. This album featured narration by Helen Mirren and Damian Lewis.

In 2022, Debbie was voted the most popular living composer in the Classic FM Hall of Fame. Seven of her works were in the chart, with The Glorious Garden reaching its highest spot at number 4.

Debbie Wiseman was the official composer and music director for the Platinum Jubilee Celebration at Windsor in May 2022. Later that year, a special piece of music she composed and conducted, called Elizabeth Remembered, was used by the BBC as the theme music for their coverage of the late Queen's funeral. She shared that this music was recorded five years earlier in secret, out of respect.

In 2023, she composed a new version of the Alleluia for the coronation of Charles III and Camilla. In June 2023, Debbie Wiseman released Signature, a live concert album. It features some of her most popular works played by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, which she also conducted. This album immediately went to number one on the UK Classical Chart.