Nerida Tyson-Chew

Nerida Tyson-Chew was born in 1965.[1] She was raised in Sydney where she attended the State Conservatorium of Music, then University of Sydney for a Bachelor of Music with honours in composition.[1][2] She travelled to Los Angeles to complete a Master's Degree in scoring for motion pictures and television at University of Southern California.[1] United States composer Jerry Goldsmith was one of her teachers.[3] When composing she uses "4 Ps : Pencil, Paper, Piano and Performer."[2] She began her career as an orchestrator for Australian composer Bruce Rowland.[4]

Tyson-Chew gained wide-spread recognition for screen music composition on her first feature film, Hotel Sorrento (1995), which was directed by Richard Franklin. In the following year she worked on Franklin's next film, Brilliant Lies. She won her first Australian Guild of Screen Composers (AGSC) Award, in 1996, in the category Best Music for a Children's Television Series for the two films.[5] She had also received a nomination for the AFI Award for Best Original Music Score for Hotel Sorrento in 1995.[4][6] Her third film with Franklin, One Way Ticket (1997), was a made-for-televison drama. The composer collaborated with the director on most of his subsequent projects – he also provided lyrics for some of her tunes.[3]

She was profiled by Connections' writer, Madeleine Murray, who described the composer's process for the drama film, Under the Lighthouse Dancing (October 1997).[7] Tyson-Chew typically starts with a description from a film's director (in this case, Graham Rattigan) and on her grand piano in her suburban home she writes the themes and melodies, some for an entire orchestra (Melbourne Symphony Orchestra).[7] She provides the rough version for the director's approval and then plans the recording schedule for the orchestra, which she conducts.[7] Her music is written to precise lengths to fit the film's time codes for each scene.[7] For her work on Under the Lighthouse Dancing, Twisted Tales (1996–1997) and Fern Gully 2, she won Best Original Music in a TV Series or Film at the AGSC Awards of 1997.[5] At the 1999 ceremony she won the Best Original Music in a TV Series or Serial, shared with Garry McDonald and Lawrence Stone, for their work on The Lost World (1999).[5]

Yahoo Serious' film Mr. Accident (2000) was scored by Tyson-Chew.[8] From 2002 AGSC combined with APRA AMCOS to provide the Screen Music Awards. At the 2003 ceremony she won Best Music for a Mini-Series or Telemovie for Evil Never Dies.[9][10] For Trishna & Krishna: The Quest for Separate Lives she won Best Music for a Documentary in 2010.[11] She won another Best Music for Children's Television in 2018 for The Deep episode, "The Missing".[12] At the APRA Music Awards of 2020 in December she was acknowledged for her Distinguished Services to the Australian Screen, which recognised her long-term career as a composer in diverse forms including film, TV dramas, children's programmes and documentaries.[13][14][15]