Biography
British composer Rebecca Dale first drew widespread notice through film and television scoring before achieving substantial crossover success on the Classic FM network. In a notable distinction she became the initial woman composer to join the roster of the prominent Decca label, an imprint that has seldom contracted composers regardless of gender. Born in 1985 she began creating music in early childhood, completing a musical by age ten and a piano concerto by age fifteen. Scholarships supported her specialized secondary training, after which she attended New College Oxford. She later obtained a master’s degree with honors in Composing for Film & Television from the National Film and Television School and pursued additional opportunities in the United States through the ASCAP Film Scoring Workshop in Hollywood, the Sundance Composers Lab, and a residency at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire.
Her professional output has encompassed both soundtrack assignments and concert works. Film and television projects include the scores for Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, Stephen Frears’s The Program, The Take featuring Idris Elba, Disney’s Queen of Katwe, and Crossing the Line, the last of which earned her a 2017 nomination for Best Original Music in Feature Film at the International Music+Sound Awards. She also supplied music for the three-part BBC One adaptation of Little Women starring Angela Lansbury, Michael Gambon, and Emily Watson. Concert recognition expanded after BBC radio broadcast her choral symphony When Music Sounds in 2014. Subsequent partnerships with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the London Mozart Players, the Scottish Festival Orchestra, the Canterbury Cathedral Girls’ Choir, and the London Oriana Choir—where she held the composer-in-residence post during 2017–2018—further elevated her profile. The track Winter she contributed to an album by the a cappella ensemble Voces8 attracted particular critical praise. Following her 2018 signing with Decca she issued a recording of the Requiem mass she had composed in memory of her mother; the resulting album Requiem for My Mother attained the top position on the British classical charts in September of that year.
Her professional output has encompassed both soundtrack assignments and concert works. Film and television projects include the scores for Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, Stephen Frears’s The Program, The Take featuring Idris Elba, Disney’s Queen of Katwe, and Crossing the Line, the last of which earned her a 2017 nomination for Best Original Music in Feature Film at the International Music+Sound Awards. She also supplied music for the three-part BBC One adaptation of Little Women starring Angela Lansbury, Michael Gambon, and Emily Watson. Concert recognition expanded after BBC radio broadcast her choral symphony When Music Sounds in 2014. Subsequent partnerships with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the London Mozart Players, the Scottish Festival Orchestra, the Canterbury Cathedral Girls’ Choir, and the London Oriana Choir—where she held the composer-in-residence post during 2017–2018—further elevated her profile. The track Winter she contributed to an album by the a cappella ensemble Voces8 attracted particular critical praise. Following her 2018 signing with Decca she issued a recording of the Requiem mass she had composed in memory of her mother; the resulting album Requiem for My Mother attained the top position on the British classical charts in September of that year.
Albums
Singles
