“Sail on a Sunset” from Revealing Beauty album used in the highest earning Russian film of all time!
Yes, multi award winning 2017 Russian film “Three Seconds” uses music from the Revealing Beauty album, several years after the theme first appeared in the BBC series “Francesco’s Mediterranean Voyage”. The film has grossed over $66,000,000 at the box office! https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5987402
Revealing Destiny – Part 2
Hello everyone! I’m happy to present the video montage for part 2 of the “Revealing Destiny” album.
and for a track I accidentally omitted from the montage titled “Dances with Dolphins”
Once again, orchestrated and co-composed by the brilliant Michael Doherty and performed by the Sofia Session orchestra. Thank you to the talented Devesh Sodha for our first collaboration on “Time for Action” – may there be many more!
Thank you again Julie Elven for the hauntingly beautiful vocals, Ben Davies for the incredible electric guitar playing, and Sandro Friedrich for the wonderfully exotic Duduk and Ney performances. A very big thank you to maestro Lyubomir Denev for his superlative conducting skills as always!
A big thank you to George Strezov and the “Four For Music” team, Plamen Penchev, Georgi Elenkov and Alexander Kostov.
Thanks again to Director/Editor Andrea Carnevali, for without him, much of this music would certainly not exist.
And a final thank you to my father, Costas Nicolaides for his continued support and appreciation of my work.
I hope you enjoy this teaser. The complete album will be available very, very soon…
Thank you for listening,
~Chris
EMI Superheroes
Well, my promise to deliver Part 2 of the forthcoming “Revealing Destiny” album by August was scuppered by various other projects, including the forthcoming EMI “Superheroes” album.
I created a short video montage of the 4 pieces I co-wrote – three with the brilliant Michael Doherty and one with the talented young Anže Rozman. Julie Elven once again delivered stunningly beautiful vocals and Sandro Friedrich on Duduk & Ney performed with a depth and beauty I’m starting to take for granted! Thank you all.
Thanks also to George Strezov and his orchestra, and to Tom Tom Studios and their orchestra. This was a truly international affair!
Let’s see. One orchestra in Bulgaria, one in Hungary. Co-Composers in Ireland and Slovenia. Singer in Germany. Ethnic Woodwinds in Switzerland. The Latvian Radio Choir. Oh, and me in London of Greek Cypriot heritage! That’s a pretty international collaboration 
The album will be released in November as part of EMI’s production music catalogue. I hope you enjoy this short teaser. Click EMI Superheroes to see the video.
Meanwhile, the “Revealing Destiny” album is taking shape and should be ready by November also.
Revealing Destiny
I have now completed the first half of the forthcoming “Revealing Destiny” album. Please click here to see a montage featuring the wonderful Bulgarian concert orchestra!
International Composers Festival 2015
Thrilled to be able to announce that I have been invited to be part of The International Composers Festival 2015. It is truly an honour to have my work performed by an international orchestra alongside those of John Williams and Hans Zimmer amongst others. With the help of my orchestrator Michael Doherty, we have created a mini-suite using themes from the Revealing Beauty album.
I hope to see some of you there on Saturday 26th September!
Revealing Beauty Album
After almost three years in the making, my live orchestral album “Revealing Beauty” is finally complete. The album features themes from some of the major BBC series I’ve had the privilege of scoring in recent years.
Recorded with the Budapest and Macedonian Concert Orchestras, and orchestrated by the amazing Michael Doherty (with a contribution from legendary orchestrator Nicholas Dodd), the music finally sounds as I always imagined.
Guest appearances by the inimitable legend Tom Boyd (Schindler’s List, Titanic, Forrest Gump etc) on oboe and English horn, the incredible Karen Jones (Harry Potter, Sweeney Todd etc) on flute, and a brief appearance by the brilliant Sandro Friedrich on Duduk.
Guest vocals by the beautiful and talented ladies Julie Elven and Ashton Zyer. Thank you ladies for your impassioned contributions! I also have to thank BBC director/editor Andrea Carnevali. Without his guidance and support, most of this music would not exist!
The album features music from:
The Queen’s Palaces
Francesco’s Mediterranean Voyage
Seven Ages of Britain
Shakespeare in Italy
The Manor Reborn
Empire
…and a bonus track from Britain’s Great War.
The music encompasses a range of styles and moods – passion, romance, adventure, loneliness, danger and many more. I hope to take you on a musical journey through these BBC programmes. Please click on the “Buy Music” tab at the top where you can hear clips and purchase the album or individual tracks. You can also see/hear a 15 minute montage of most of the album here.
Thank you for listening.
~Chris
Interview for the Cyprus Mail !
I had an extremely pleasant two hour Skype chat with a lovely and talented writer, Alix Norman. Alix wrote a wonderful and extremely flattering article which you can read here
January – September 2014
It has been a busy year, and I’m very pleased to announce that Rebecca Newman’s album “Dare to Dream” entered the classical charts at number 1. I wrote the music for both the title track, Dare to Dream, and the second original song, Heroes to the World. I am still working on my orchestral album, around my other obligations, and have now completed about 80% of the recordings. Only one session remains, but there is still plenty of editing and mixing to be done on the existing recordings. Apologies again for the delay. Best Wishes, ~Chris
May 2013 – November 2013
So, I finally have some music news to share with you. Talented soprano Rebecca Newman has just released one of the songs I wrote the music for – a big anthem called “Heroes to the World”. Some of you might recognise that the chorus is actually the theme from “Francesco’s Mediterranean Voyage”. Rebecca’s album will be available in the new year, and will feature another co-write “Dare to Dream”, which is also the name of the album.
The official video is close to completion, but meanwhile, Rebecca has uploaded a Rugby World Cup tribute video which I hope you’ll enjoy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?
My ‘album’ is still some way from completion unfortunately. BBC work has kept me busy and I have two series due out shortly. The first – “Britain and the Sea” with David Dimbleby, a 4-part series is scheduled to start on 17th Nov, 9:00pm on BBC1. David takes a fascinating voyage around Britain on his boat, while revealing some truly interesting stories along the way.
The second series with Jeremy Paxman is altogether much tougher viewing – “Britain’s Great War”, a 4 part series about WW1 scheduled for a January broadcast in line with the centenary. I did feel I was scoring a war drama while working on this one and I’m very pleased with how the music has turned out. I will update you with broadcast dates for this series when available.
October 2012 – April 2013
Apologies for the lengthy absence of any news. I have been working on two forthcoming BBC series. The first is a great ‘adventure’ with David Dimbleby called “Britain and the Sea” while the second is far more serious and about World War 1, presented by Jeremy Paxman. At this stage I’m unsure of broadcast dates, but it’s likely that one of them will be towards the end of the year, and the other at the beginning of 2014.
Meanwhile, I’m slowly recording my album with the Macedonian Radio Orchestra that will feature music from “Francesco’s Mediterranean Voyage”, “Empire”, “The Queen’s Palaces”, “Shakespeare in Italy” and “Seven Ages of Britain”. I may also include some themes I’m fond of from other series depending on available recording time. I’m extremely pleased with the two recording sessions we have already done, and it was great to hear that composer Javier Navarrete won the EMMY for best score 2012 using the same orchestra!
January – May 2012 News
After being brought in to replace the score for BBC1 series “The Manor Reborn”, Chris started work on “Shakespeare in Italy”. The first episode was broadcast on 3rd May, BBC2, and was voted ‘Pick of the Day’ by virtually all the newspapers. This summer, Chris is planning to re-record music from this and previous BBC series, for a future album release.
I have been passionate about music from a very young age, playing both classical piano and violin since I was seven years old. During my teens I spent hours at the piano working out how to play songs that I liked... whether they were Pop, Rock or R&B. Writing songs followed naturally, while at the same time I was discovering quality film music by masters such as John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith. This inspired me to learn to compose for film and television. In 1990, a top BBC producer/director, John B Hobbs, was impressed enough to give me a chance at scoring the series "Mulberry", starring Geraldine McEwan. The passion for scoring to picture grew stronger, and the journey continues...