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Tune into reel world with 'master minimalist'

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Peta Tomlinson

Famous for his musical score for The Piano, Michael Nyman and his band will present excerpts from a range of soundtracks

Even if the name Michael Nyman doesn't ring any bells with you, his work surely will. A composer of international repute, he has written significant musical compositions from opera and chamber music to choral work - but is perhaps most famous for his movie soundtracks.

If you've ever watched The Diary of Anne Frank, The Cold Room, Drowning by Numbers or The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover, then you've heard his work.

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While he wrote several musical scores for filmmaker Peter Greenaway, it was for The Piano, directed by Jane Campion, that Nyman's best-known work was produced.

The British-born musician did his traditional classical training at the Royal Academy of Music and King's College London.

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He became known as a 'minimalist' musician - a term he came up with himself when, as a music critic for The Spectator, he applied it to Cornelius Cardew's work The Great Digest.

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