ABOUT
BIOG
David Paul Jones (DPJ) is a composer, pianist and vocalist whose music blends contemporary classical sensibilities with digital sound, often shaped around the sung and spoken word. He writes solo piano works, song cycles and soundtracks for the stage, commissioned and performed throughout Scotland, the UK and internationally. His work is known for its quiet intimacy and evocative musical landscapes.
As a live artist, DPJ performs his own work as both pianist and singer in solo and ensemble settings. His concert works include the song cycle Lone Tree, drawn from the poetry of Kathleen Jamie, which premiered at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2024. His debut album, Something There, appears on Linn Records.
Alongside his concert work, DPJ has written widely for theatre, with a particular focus on visual and non-verbal storytelling. He has collaborated with companies including the National Theatre of Scotland, Traverse Theatre, Dundee Rep and Vanishing Point, and is a long-standing member of the Grid Iron creative team, composing music for many of their acclaimed site-specific productions. He is also frequently cast in productions directed by Ben Harrison, including the one-man production What Remains (2011), a live performance and installation work inspired by gothic horror.
A long-standing creative partnership with writer and performer Ramesh Meyyappan has produced several acclaimed works. Their recent collaboration, Lear, premiered at the Singapore International Festival of Arts in 2025, following the award-winning Love Beyond, a Raw Material / Vanishing Point co-production directed by Matthew Lenton. DPJ received Best Music at the Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland (CATS) for his score to Love Beyond, which toured to the Hong Kong Arts Festival in 2025, with a further tour to Japan in 2026.
His international work includes being the first international Composer in Residence with the National Theatre of China for The Green Snake. Thirteen years after its premiere, The Green Snake is now being revived for an extensive tour of China throughout 2026-27. His music has also been performed widely across Asia, including at the Daejeon International Small Plays Festival in South Korea, in Ben Harrison’s Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me (2024/25).
Forthcoming work includes The Table (2026), a new dance-theatre co-production by Curious Seed, Lung Ha and Lyra, and the soundtrack for the stage adaptation of Andrew O’Hagan’s novel Mayflies, adapted and directed by Ben Harrison and produced by Grid Iron for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2026. He has also written extensively for children’s theatre.
DPJ is the recipient of the Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award for Music, and his independent work is supported by Creative Scotland. He lives and works in Edinburgh.
“There is something filmic about the music, which also has echoes
of the wilder shores of pop music of the last 40 years.”
All Edinburgh Theatre
“A searching and beautiful score by David Paul Jones, which leads us straight into
the surges of thought and emotion that cannot be expressed in words.”
The Scotsman
Photo Credits: Douglas Jones, Dundee Rep, Edinburgh International Book Festival, Rob McDonald, Neil Thomas Douglas, Push The Boat Out Poetry Festival, Mihaela Bodlovic, Peter Dibdin
IN DEVELOPMENT
Night Songs — a new song cycle inspired by the night sky, from poems by Kathleen Jamie.
Hallway — a vocal electroacoustic soundtrack exploring themes of assisted death and an imagined afterlife, inspired by the death of DPJ’s friend in 2024.
The Dusk and the Dark — a new solo piano collection based on the spiritual writings of Thomas Merton and J. Krishnamurti.
The Unravelled Heart — the first in a series EPs and short works.
Lone Tree — a studio of album of DPJ’s first song cycle based on the poetry of Kathleen Jamie
All projects currently in development are kindly supported by Creative Scotland.
LISTEN
RECENT PRODUCTIONS
CURRENT PRODUCTIONS
COMPLETE WORKS