Nicholas Scott-Burt Recordings

Born in Bristol in 1962, Nicholas played the piano by ear, composed, and improvised from a very early age. Whilst still at primary school in Reading, he wrote and produced three “operas”, performed by him and a few bemused classmates in the school hall. The work he was eventually happy to call his Opus 1 was an organ sonata, written in 1980 when he was 17 years old.

He studied music at the University of Bristol, where his teachers included Raymond Warren, Derek Bourgeois, Adrian Beaumont and Robert Saxton – “making me a second generation pupil of Tippett, Howells, Nadia Boulanger and Luciano Berio – quite an eclectic mix!” – gaining Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, and 20 years later returning for a PhD.

He was a school Director of Music in his early career, since when he has been variously a church musician, choral and orchestral conductor, organist, accompanist, jazz pianist, teacher and examiner. His music ranges from pop songs to symphonic scores, much choral and church music, a violin concerto, a chamber concerto for flute and harp, and a Sinfonietta: The Western Cape, composed in 2024 for the Cape Town and Stellenbosch Youth Orchestras.

Of his musical style, he says: “There are three main primary colours, but myriad shades between them. They are neo-classicism (new wine in old bottles), postmodernism (old wine in new bottles), and jazz (never mind the bottles, just drink the wine).“