Nick Bicât

Nick Bicât was born in Reading, England, of Ukranian, French, Chechen and Irish ancestry. He began composing in the theatre aged 18, and this led over the years to writing over 150 scores and soundtracks for film, television, theatre, festival events and concert performance. Winner of a BAFTA and twice nominated, his film and television scores include A Christmas Carol 1984 (George C Scott), The Scarlet Pimpernel (Antony Andrews/Sir Ian McKellen/Jane Seymour), Wetherby (by Sir David Hare), and The Reflecting Skin (by Philip Ridley). He has composed for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, written eleven musicals and an opera The Knife, with Sir David Hare, (best musical score, 1989 New York Drama Desk Awards). Other collaborators include Tony Bicât, Edward Bond, Adrian Mitchell Howard Brenton and Ted Hughes.

His orchestral work Under the Eye of Heaven was performed at the Barbican and London Arena. Other concert performances include When Will There Be Peace?, an internationally televised open air concert for the International Red Cross in Geneva, and in 2000 Symphony in Morris Minor, commissioned to mark the millennium, and performed in Oxford to an audience of 50,000.

As a songwriter, Nick Bicât has written for Emma Kirkby, Deniece Williams and P.J. Harvey. His song Who Will Love Me Now?, sung by P.J. Harvey, was BBC Radio 1 top film song for 1998. Albums include Under the Eye of Heaven (Virgin Classics), with the London Chamber Orchestra. A choral work Beslan/Requiem, recorded by Andrew Parrott and the Taverner Consort, was released in 2014, and has been performed several times, recently at St George's, Bristol by the Exultate Choir. His Akathistos, a processional cantata on the Siege of Constantinople of 626 AD, was premiered at St. Stephen Walbrook, London in January 2020.