25 Facts About Michael Nyman

Michael Nyman has written six concerti, five string quartets, and many other chamber works, many for his Michael Nyman Band.

Michael Nyman was born in Stratford, London to a family of secular Jewish furriers who immigrated from Poland.

Michael Nyman studied from 1961 until 1967 at King's College London and at the Royal Academy of Music until 1967, with Alan Bush and Thurston Dart, focusing on piano and seventeenth-century baroque music.

Michael Nyman won the Howard Carr Memorial Prize for composition in July 1964.

Michael Nyman wrote introductions for George Frideric Handel's Concerti grossi, Op.

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In 1974 Michael Nyman published an influential book on experimental music called Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond, which explored the influence of John Cage on classical composers.

Michael Nyman was the featured pianist on the orchestra's recording of Bridge Over Troubled Water on the Martin Lewis-produced 20 Classic Rock Classics album on which the Sinfonia gave their unique interpretations of the pop and rock repertoire of the 1950s–1970s.

Many of Michael Nyman's works are written for his ensemble, with the line up variously altered and augmented.

Michael Nyman wrote settings to various texts by Mozart for Letters, Riddles and Writs, part of Not Mozart.

Michael Nyman recorded pop music with the Flying Lizards; a version of his Bird List from the soundtrack to Peter Greenaway's The Falls appears on their album Fourth Wall as "Hands 2 Take".

In 1993, Michael Nyman's popularity increased after he wrote the score to Jane Campion's award-winning 1993 film The Piano.

Michael Nyman's soundtrack won an Ivor Novello Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA and American Film Institute award He was nominated for a British Academy Award and a Golden Globe.

Michael Nyman produced a soundtrack for the silent film Man with a Movie Camera which largely reworked material he wrote for the soundtrack of the 1996 video game Enemy Zero.

In 1999, Michael Nyman created a group called Foster's Social Orchestra, which specialised in the work of Stephen Foster.

Michael Nyman composed the music for the children's television series Titch which is based on the books written and illustrated by Pat Hutchins.

Michael Nyman began a long-term artistic collaboration with the filmmaker Max Pugh which resulted in many short art films, three experimental feature documentaries and a number of video installations.

In 2008 Michael Nyman realised, in collaboration with the cultural association Volumina, Sublime, an artist's book that unified his music with his passion for photography.

In October 2009, Michael Nyman released The Glare, a collaborative collection of songs with David McAlmont, which cast his work in a new light.

Keith H Yoo in 2012 commissioned Nyman to write a 26 minutes long piano quintet in four movements titled Through the Only Window.

In 2013 Michael Nyman was again commissioned to compose a piece for Yoo Byung-eun's exhibition in the Orangerie Hall of the Palace of Versailles, and wrote the 32-minute-long symphony in four movements, Symphony No 6"AHAE", representing the four seasons in nature as depicted by Ahae, a pseudonym for Yoo Byung-eun.

Michael Nyman was married to Aet Nyman, with whom he has two daughters, Molly and Martha.

In 2005 Nyman reported that he had been a supporter of Queens Park Rangers F C for 33 years.

Michael Nyman was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2008 Birthday Honours.

Michael Nyman was awarded an honorary doctorate from The University of Warwick on 30 January 2007.

Besides his compositions Michael Nyman is a filmmaker, having made over 80 films, his first shot in 1968.

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