British born, now a permanent US resident, British Academy Award winning Donald Fraser lives and works from his home outside of Chicago.
His studio is a converted barn and he uses Sibelius software for scoring and publishing, ProTools for recording and mixing and Avid Media Composer for film and video.
Donald entered the Royal College of Music at age seventeen to study composing and conducting. His principal tutors were Sir Adrian Boult, Humphrey Searle and Alexander Goehr. He also studied with Nadia Boulanger. In his second year he was awarded all five composition prizes and a Cobbett Prize for conducting. At nineteen he began writing for film and television and, subsequently became resident composer at the Royal College of Art Film School and composer, conductor and Artistic Associate for the Old Vic Theatre Company. Donald has also created and produced TV, Film and Theatre programmes and many sound recordings for RCA, BMG, EMI, Philips, the BBC, Thames TV, PBS, Channel 4 and independent production companies. He has composed scores for over 30 documentaries, several feature films and TV series as well as more than 120 commercials, many radio dramas and music for the concert hall. Donald’s music been heard at many of the world’s major festivals including Edinburgh, Istanbul, Perth (Australia), Hong Kong as well as on theatrical tours to the United States, China, Japan and many European countries.
His music has been widely performed and recorded by, among others:
Artists:
Yehudi Menuhin, Jessye Norman, Sir Thomas Allen, Sir Andrew Davis, Maxim Vengarov, Andrew Litton, Sir Alexander Gibson, Peter Donohoe, Sarah Brightman, Eugenia Zuckerman, Anton Armstrong, Josephine Lee, Duain Wolfe, Grant Gershon, John Scott, Constance Chase, Lea Salonga, Daniel Rodriguez, Julie Covington, Jim Litton, Lionel Friend, Matthew Oltman and Robert DeCourmier.
Orchestras, Choirs and Ensembles:
Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the English Chamber Orchestra, Sinfonia of London, National Orchestra of Mexico, Orchestra of St Luke’s, Colorado Symphony, National Philharmonic Orchestra, Mendelssohn Chamber Orchestra, Hollywood Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Opera Orchestra, Augusta Symphony and Opera Company, the Prague Symphony Orchestra, the Shanghai, Chillingirian and Medici String Quartets, Canadian Brass, Atlantic Brass, ECO Brass, the American Boychoir, the New York Choral Society, Chicago Symphony Singers, the Choirs of St. Olaf’s College, West Point Glee Club, the Cheyenne Chamber Singers, Boston Gay Men’s Chorus, The Empire City Men’s Choir, Turtle Creek Men’s Chorus, the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus, the Chicago Childrens’ Choir, the Choir of St. Paul’s Cathedral and literally more than a thousand church and community choirs around the world.