Stewart Copeland

COMPOSER / DRUMS

Stewart Copeland has spent more than three decades at the fore-front of contemporary music as a rock star and acclaimed film composer, as well as in the disparate worlds of opera, ballet, and world and chamber music.

Recruiting Sting and Andy Summers in 1977, Copeland is renowned as the founder of The Police, a band that became a defining force in rock music from the ‘80s through to the present day. His career includes the sale of more than 60 million records worldwide and numerous awards, including five Grammy awards.

Copeland moved beyond the rock arena in the mid-1980s when he returned to his classical roots with creative pursuits in concert and film music. His concert works include BEN-HUR, A Tale of the Christ, which features Copeland as soloist in a live orchestral score for the 1925 silent film; Tyrant’s Crush: Concerto for Trapset and Orchestra commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra; Poltroons in Paradise commissioned by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra; and Gamelan D’Drum, commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra for the world percussion group D’Drum.

In 2021, Copeland created a new project, Stewart Copeland: Police Deranged for Orchestra, which focuses on the epic rise of his career. The concert is an evening bursting with The Police’s biggest hits including Roxanne, Don’t Stand So Close To Me, and Message In A Bottle arranged for full symphony orchestra, as well as hand-picked highlights from Copeland’s compositions. The project toured across North America and Europe throughout 2021 and 2022 with many sold-out concerts and continues touring in 2023 and 2024 in a new format.

In 2022, his rock opera The Witches Seed premiered in Italy at the Tones on the Stones Festival in a stunning quarry, in collaboration with creative partner Chrissie Hynde and with a libretto by regular collaborator Jonathan Moore, with many more replicas in progress for 2024 and 2025.

Recipient of the Hollywood Film Festival’s first Outstanding Music in Film Visionary Award, a Grammy nominee for his 2005 CD Orchestralli, and a 2003 inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Copeland has been responsible for some of the film world’s most innovative and ground-breaking scores. His numerous film scores include Oliver Stone’s Wall Street, the seminal score for the Golden Globe-nominated soundtrack for Francis Ford Coppola’s Rumble Fish, the score for Bruno Barreto’s Oscar-nominated Four Days in September and his Emmy nomination for the Showtime pilot and series Dead Like Me. His work in television includes contributions to The Equalizer, Babylon 5, and Desperate Housewives and he also scored the blockbuster hit video game Spyro.