and for ten years played in rock bands, making a small but still faintly detectable impact
on 1980s pop, before studying composition and conducting at Trinity College of Music
in London. At Trinity he had lessons for four years with John Tavener, winning the
Chappell Prize for composition and the Ricordi Prize for conducting (twice).
In 1987 he was a finalist in the national Yehudi Menhuin and Royal Overseas League
competitions, and whilst still a student his first string quartet was given by the Roth
Quartet at the Purcell Room.
In the 1990s Simpson earned a living as a criminal lawyer, composing in his spare
time,
but quit to be a professional musician on moving back to Manchester in 1998.
His music has been played in Europe and the USA, by artists as diverse as
the Composers' Ensemble, the B.B.C. Symphony Orchestra and the English
String Quartet. He has written music in a wide variety of genres, including
two symphonies and many chamber pieces, and is one of a small (and undistinguished)
number of people whose work has been played both on Radio 1 and Radio 3.
He has led courses for the Sound Inventors composition in education team which
won a Royal Philharmonic Society award. In 2005 his Symphony No.2 was
recorded by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and broadcast on Radio 3. His
recent piece for the Fell Clarinet Quartet, Mardale Changes, has been
performed at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester and elsewhere in the UK;
it is now being recorded for the Edinburgh-based Delphian Records. A new orchestral
piece, If Only We Could Go to Moscow, will be premiered in March 2008, and he
is now working on a 3rd Symphony. His oratorio Recreation was recently nominated for the British
Composer Awards, and will receive its third performance next June in Manchester.
Nick Simpson is Music Director of the Gorton Philharmonic Orchestra, Manchester,
and the Halifax Symphony Orchestra in West Yorkshire. He has also conducted the
Amaretti Chamber Orchestra, Chelsea Symphony Orchestra, Salford Symphony Orchestra,
the Manchester Beethoven Society Orchestra and Warrington Youth Orchestra.
Nick Simpson is married and has three children.