Coker’s jerkily rhythmic score made a powerful impact from the start – The Times

Tim Coker was born in Walsall, West Midlands.

He is a composer, writer and theatre director with a particular interest in music for theatre. He is published by Edition HH.

Tim’s first major success as a composer came in 2004 with his music theatre work Walking not Driving winning critical acclaim during its national tour, directed by John Fulljames. Since then Tim has written extensively for both theatre and concert platforms including recently The Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, The York Mystery plays and recorder ensemble Fontanella.

Other recent works include incidental music for Molière’s L’Avare written for period instrument ensemble Passacaglia with virtuoso recorder player Dan Laurin, and a sonata for piano and recorder performed by Robin Bigwood and Annabel Knight. His choral work My Soul There is a Countrie commissioned by Finchley Chamber Choir was featured on ITV’s Artworks programme and he has recently completed a large-scale music theatre piece based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest combining live and recorded sound.

Tim has a 1st class degree from the Birmingham Conservatoire where he studied composition with John Joubert and with Royal Shakespeare Company Director of Music, John Woolf. He then began post-graduate studies at Manchester University with John Casken, where he was awarded a Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust Scholarship. He later studied with John Woolrich and Simon Holt at Royal Holloway, University of London and in 2007, completed his doctorate entitled Dramma Per Musica – Towards a New Music-Theatre.

Tim’s music has featured at a number of festivals including Cheltenham, Lichfield, Buxton, Newbury and Huddersfield and his music can be heard regularly in concert both in the UK and abroad.

His music has been performed by some of the world’s leading ensembles including the Lindsay String Quartet, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, the New Music Players, The Opera Group, the Composer’s Ensemble, Orkest de Volharding and the BBC Singers. His choral work, What the Sea Saw (commissioned for the 10th anniversary of the Herald of Free Enterprise ferry disaster for the Academic Scholars Chamber Choir) has been released on CD entitled, Hereditary Voices and his more recent work for Fontanella, The Leaves Be Green is available on their CD The Fruit of Love.