Debbie Wiseman

Summary

‘I love the fact that, whether people like or dislike the music, what I write will be performed and then heard.’

Debbie Wiseman is unarguably a specialist composer, known almost exclusively for her two-hundred-plus scores for film (Arsène Lupin, Tom & Viv, Wilde) and television (Jackanory, Judge John Deed, The Promise). Unlike her fellow film composer Christopher Gunning, for example, she has no parallel body of concert music that has been overshadowed by her work for the screen, and she's happy to be a leading fish in one of classical music's ponds rather than a minnow in the mainstream.

Because her pond is a commercial (and presumably competitive) one, she knows the importance of self-promotion, and so, although she doesn't – I imagine – seek publicity for its own sake, she has over the years agreed readily to my requests for photoshoots and interviews. I first photographed her in October 1999 at the CTS Studios in Wembley, where she was recording one of her film scores – for she's also an experienced orchestral conductor who's used to helping musicians bring her work to life. Rather to my annoyance, when I photographed her in July 2011 after the interview for this book she appeared to have aged barely a year during the intervening twelve. As on the other occasions when I’ve met her, she was immaculately presented – a fact that's significant only because it suggested that in her branch of composition, which has a strongly corporate element, good grooming can be part of professional presentation as well as personal taste.

I noticed that this impeccability extended to her working environment at home – a large, modern house in north London. Her studio, occupying one of the bright, spacious ground-floor rooms, was dominated by a grand piano, an even grander TV monitor and a bank of computers. In fact, there was little else in the room except a couple of office chairs, a modern, cuboid coffee table on wheels and bookshelves containing copies of her soundtrack CDs and DVDs. Framed certificates and posters promoting some of the films for which she has written music lined the walls. It was part composer's study, part recording studio and part film executive's office.