Biography

Clive Cockburn composes for film and television and hosts his own music writing course for songwriters and composers.

“Music with drama has always been my first love so writing music for film was a natural progression after writing for theatre. I have co-written several musicals and operas, ‘Boadicea’ being the latest. My formal education was firstly studying classical piano and secondly the Grove School of Music in Los Angeles where I studied composing and arranging. My practical education was playing guitar in rock bands. One of these, the ‘Avengers’ was extremely successful in New Zealand with recordings in the Top Ten on several occasions. Since 1980, I have been producing TV commercials, documentaries and films. I have won the ‘Best Original Music’ category three times out of five nominations at the NZ Film and Televisions Awards. Over the last few years I have been working with my son who is an excellent musician/mix engineer and FX creator. ‘Frontier of Dreams’ was a major television series for which we both wrote, blending electronics, traditional Maori music and an orchestra. As we come from different decades and musical backgrounds, we can approach a scene in many different ways. Our writing and pre-production studios, the session musicians we use, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and our Post Production facilities are world class.”

[Information about Clive Cockburn and his music for film and television can also be found on the NZ Onscreen website.]

• Works (4)