Terry Davies

He is now an associate artist with choreographer Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures company, scoring productions such as The Car Man, Edward Scissorhands, and the double Olivier-winning Play Without Words.

His most recent composition, the soundtrack to Bourne’s ballet Dorian Gray, has just been released and is available from iTunes and Amazon or at Terry’s website: www.terrydavies.com/sales.

Was there a composer or conductor who inspired you to choose this career?

I admired a lot of composers, people like Ravel, Stravinksy, Stevie Wonder and Duke Ellington.

But the person who had the biggest effect on me was the conductor Peter Turton, who played a piece of my music by a few friends of mine. I couldn’t believe his enthusiasm. He was the person who made me think I could be a composer. He was a tutor at what was then the London College Of Music and encouraged me to apply there.

He was just wonderful.

Is there a song or individual piece of music you always come back to?

I don’t like to listen to any piece of music too much, even the pieces I love – I like to keep them special.

I don’t think many composers listen to a lot of music. I hate background music.

There is a particular record by Fats Waller from 1931 called I’m Crazy ‘Bout My Baby. He’s completely barking, but he plays piano in such a dramatic way – fantastically virtuoso and full of wit.

In terms of classical stuff, I love Ravel. There’s a piece called Le Tombeau de Couperin which he wrote during the First World War. It is a suite of piano pieces which are all dedicated to the memory of his friends who were killed in the war, and the music describes their characters. There is a lot of love in that music. It’s really profound without being depressing.

Tell us about any guilty pleasures lurking in your CD or film collection.

I had a lot of guilty pleasures as a serious music student. Among them was ABBA – I just adore Mamma Mia. The show is terrific, too. It’s about as naff as it gets but there is so much life in there.

Do you have a favourite film?

I think The Third Man is unrivalled as a British film. I’m a really big Graham Greene fan, I’ve read most of his novels. Orson Welles is astonishing and there is a lot of great music. I have been talking to Canal Plus who own the rights to the film about organising some performances of the film with live music.

Is there a TV programme you couldn’t live without?

My TV lives in a cupboard and only comes out when I’m watching DVDs. I am involved in Bafta voting so the postman is always lugging DVDs to my house. I have done a lot of TV work myself that I’m proud of, but I don’t watch stuff on the off-chance.

Do you have a favourite book?

My favourite is Graham Greene’s Travels With My Aunt. It is a serious writer enjoying himself and having a bit of fun.

How did you approach writing the music to Dorian Gray?

I re-read the book, and some related books such as Dorian by Will Self, and watched a lot of films. Matthew’s references are often to films. Dorian Gray is in a very contemporary setting, so we listened to what was the best and most appropriate of the music around right now.

Matthew tends to work scene by scene. He will send me a synopsis of a scene: “The character enters, he feels like this, somebody comes in after 90 seconds, they have an argument and after a minute they leave.” I write the music to that and send it back to him. We tend to work quite fast. Writing music for a ballet is different to a film – Matthew describes it as the script to his dancers.

What projects are you working on now?

Matthew and I have been talking about a few things. There’s one that is too early to talk about, and another education project. There are two films I have been conducting recently – a wonderful animated film called The Illusionist by French director Sylvain Chomet who did Belleville Rendezvous, which is based on a Jacques Tati script for a film he never made.

The other is a Stephen Poliakoff film called Glorious ‘39 [released November 2009].