Neil Brand

Prize Winning Composer, Musician and Writer

Education

Neil Brand received his BA Hons in English and Drama from Aberystwyth University in 1979. Today he writes radio plays and works for theatre as well as composing music for radio, film and TV, specialising is silent film music.

Career Path

Neil likes facing new challenges. Hence he particularly enjoys the diversity of his work, the sense of drawing together two or even three disciplines by using drama in its musical and literary forms. Whilst music and writing take up roughly half of his work time each, his writing tends to be commission only.

Neil Brand was shortlisted for a Sony Award in 2005 for his Radio play Stan and Getting the Joke rewarded him with a nomination for the Tinniswood Prize in 2006. Over the years Neil Brand has won a number of prizes for musical theatre while also having had the chance to work together with people such as John Wood, Tom Courtenay and Paul Merton. He has lectured at universities in the United States, spoken at film festivals around the world and has been presenting his own one man show in Edinburgh.

Why English and Creative Writing?

The forging of Neil Brand’s skill started at Aberystwyth University. Here he experienced his first in-depth encounter with drama and language: “I write well because I understand language”.

During his studies in Aberystwyth he  “met” various literary figures which he later wrote about. The Cave of Harmony for example portrays the relationship between Dickens and Thackeray set against the background of the 19th century London Song and Supper clubs and Between the Lines describes Siegfried Sassoon's journey through 1920’s England.