Nate Edmondson • Composer, Lyricist, Sound Designer, Writer
Nate is an international, multi-award winning composer, lyricist, writer, sound designer, musical director, (and occasional video designer) for film, television, radio, advertising and stage. He is currently a full-time composer, lyricist, and sound designer for Rockefeller Studios, in North America.
Nate originally trained as a classical and jazz trombonist, and pianist, in addition to fronting several bands as a multi-instrumentalist singer/songwriter, and arranger. He is a graduate of the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), where he trained under the mentorship of some of Australia’s finest musicians, composers, and sound designers.
Currently based in New York, Nate has worked extensively in the theatre and live events industries for the past sixteen years, and his songs, scores, and sound designs can regularly be heard on stages around the world. He has created work for Australia’s premier theatre and dance companies, and arts festivals, with much of his work touring both nationally and internationally.
In 2015 and 2016 respectively, his work on the critically acclaimed Siren Theatre Company productions of Misterman and Good With Maps both earned him a Sydney Theatre Award for Best Score / Sound Design. In 2018, his work as sound designer with Sydney Theatre Company on the two-part stage epic, The Harp In The South, garnered multiple award nominations, including a prestigious Helpmann Award nomination for Best Sound Design, in 2019. Further to individual accolades, Nate has been a part of hundreds of award-winning productions around the world.
On the international stage, Nate has written music for productions in Asia, the UK and the US, and his work has toured across the globe. The UK remount of his composition and sound design for All My Sons, with Street Theatre, was the winner of Best Score / Sound Design for the 2015 Somerset Fellowship of Drama Awards. His celebrated scores for The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show helped smash Off-Broadway box office records in the US in 2016, and again in 2017, and led to Drama Desk Awards and Off-Broadway Alliance Awards nominations, followed by multiple sold out seasons on London's West End. Nate's work on this production has now been heard by millions across the globe, and still tours globally to this day.
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Throughout 2020/21, Nate wrote and arranged the original score for the world premier of Disney's Winnie The Pooh: The New Musical Stage Adaptation, which debuted Off-Broadway in New York to critical acclaim, and now tours globally. Produced by Rockefeller Studios, and Disney Theatrical Group, Nate also served as musical director, and adapted and re-invented several songs from Disney's musical catalogue, including iconic songs by the Sherman Brothers.
In 2022, Nate wrote several original songs for Sesame Street The Musical, collaborating with Broadway composers Tom Kitt, and Helen Park. He also created new arrangements of many classic songs from the Sesame Street catalogue, and served as musical director on the project. In 2023, Nate wrote a new musical based on Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit books, entitled Peter Rabbit The Musical, which will premiere in 2025.
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As a writer, Nate has written multiple short films, and full-length plays and musicals, including stage adaptations of multiple Disney films, and other notable properties. He has also worked as a dramaturg on the development of dozens of projects for stage and screen.
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Nate was a panelist for New York Comic Con in 2022, and for Broadway Con in 2023. He also created, and co-hosted Closing Night: Theatre Therapy, a successful theatre podcast, in 2019, and was featured in Brand X's Artist-2-Artist series, in 2021.
Beyond theatre, dance and live events, Nate also produces music for television, radio, online media, short films, VR, mobile apps, podcasts, and commercial advertising. In 2020, he provided score and sound design for That Golden Girls Show!, streamed online through Broadway On Demand, and also produced a feature film adaptation of Massenet's Cendrillon opera, with the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. In 2021, he provided score, foley, and sound design for Paddington Saves Christmas, for Studio Canal, which streamed globally for the festive season. Throughout 2022-23, Nate produced music for The World Of Eric Carle, a new YouTube series in collaboration with Penguin Books.
Nate also lectures in theatre production, technical audio and sound design. He has taught, supervised, and mentored students at NIDA, UTS, AIM Dramatic Arts, AFTT, Excelsior College and Wesley Institute, as well as providing consultation and technical / design support for production companies, theatrical venues and education programs across Sydney and beyond. As well as an educator, Nate has also been an active advocate for the arts, particular for composer and sound designers in Australia, and has undertaken extensive advocacy work in this area.
Nate was a recipient of an individual Australia Council ArtStart Grant for 2013, and a Mike Walsh Fellowship in 2019. He is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild.
"Nate Edmondson sets a benchmark for excellence in creative voicing of textual developments and thematic motifs in his playwright’s writings, with sound design involving scrupulous script analysis… Prolific and amazingly detailed, both as a composer and sound designer."
• Kevin Jackson
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"Here is a burgeoning Philip Glass or Michael Nyman."
• Lloyd Bradford Syke
"From the intimacy of the Old Fitz, to the bigger auditoriums of Belvoir and the Opera House, his contribution to sound design is simply outstanding."
• Suzy Wrong
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"...like a cross between Philip Glass and Alexandre Desplat."
• Glenn Saunders
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"With superbly realised technical expertise, Nate Edmondson’s music composition and sound design is simultaneously poignant, powerful and playful; tempestuous and boisterous."
• Richard Cotter
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"Nate Edmondson’s sound design and music feels like the result of an alliance between Hans Zimmer and Philip Glass."
• William Yeoman