Anne Dudley

Anne Dudley (born 7 May 1956) is an English composer, keyboardist, conductor and pop musician. She was the first BBC Concert Orchestra's Composer in Association in 2001. She has worked in both the classical and pop genres, but she is perhaps best known as one of the core members of the synthpop band Art of Noise and as a film composer. In 1998 Dudley won an Academy Award for Best Original Musical or Comedy Score for The Full Monty. In addition to over twenty other film scores, in 2012 she served as music producer for the film version of Les Misérables,also acting as arranger and composing some new additional music.

Dudley was born Anne Jennifer Beckingham, in Beckenham, Kent. Trained as a classical performer, she moved into the competitive commercial field as a session musician, where her professional relationship with Trevor Horn began. In 1982 Dudley made significant contributions to the Horn-produced The Lexicon of Love album by ABC. She went from fleshing-out keyboard parts to scoring the album's orchestrations (which were, according to Horn, her first-ever string arrangements) and also co-writing some of the songs. Her association with Horn led on to working with artists such as Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Seal, Marc Almond, Rod Stewart, Robbie Williams and, more recently, Siphiwo. She has co-written songs with Malcolm McLaren ("Buffalo Gals"), Cathy Dennis ("Too Many Walls"), and a 1930s-inspired song with Sting called "This Was Never Meant To Be".

She produced the Tom Jones hit "You Can Leave Your Hat On" (1988) and a Debbie Harry single "Strike Me Pink" (1993). Dudley produced two tracks on the 2002 Opera Babes album Beyond Imagination (ranking No.1 on the UK classical charts for 11 weeks, and No.4 on the US billboard charts). In 2004 she produced the album Voice for Alison Moyet. The album, an eclectic collection of covers, reached No.7 in the UK charts.

Dudley was a founding member of the successful band Art of Noise, which helped pioneer the use of sampling within the pop genre. Their stand-out hits include "Beat Box" (1984), "Moments in Love" (1985) and, with Tom Jones, "Kiss" (1988).

Her works for orchestra include "Northern Lights", a 14-minute reflection of Norway's Aurora Borealis for full orchestra, performed in 2005 and 2006 at the Royal Festival Hall and broadcast on BBC Radio 3's Late Junction programme in May 2005. Her first commission as Composer in Association with the BBC Concert Orchestra was "Music and Silence", inspired by the novel of the same name by Rose Tremain and first performed at The Royal Festival Hall in 2002. Dudley arranged Bach's Chaconne from Partita in D minor for piano trio, and a recording by the Eroica Trio appears on their Baroque album. Her album Ancient and Modern, with modern versions of some traditional hymns and Bach chorales, was released in 1999. She was the musical director for Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra, first performed in Brighton then at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008, which was recorded and released as a DVD in December 2009. The show was toured in 2009 with eight different regional orchestras participating. It involved the orchestra playing the Nokia theme tune and a french horn concerto evolving into the theme from Coronation Street.

Dudley collaborated with Sam Taylor-Wood in producing the sound and video installation Sigh at the White Cube in 2008. This work featured the BBC Concert Orchestra on eight large projected screens, miming to Dudley's score.

Film scores

Dudley's career in film music has spanned 20 years and her film scores include:

• Buster (1988), a British comedy drama starring musician Phil Collins, Julie Walters, Larry Lamb and Sheila Hancock;
• Silence Like Glass (Zwei Frauen) (1989), German-made but set in a cancer ward at a hospital in America;
• The Pope Must Die (1991), a comedy film starring Robbie Coltrane the score of which was co-written with Jeff Beck;
• Knight Moves (1992), an American thriller directed by Carl Schenkel and starring Christopher Lambert;
• The Crying Game (1992), an Irish/British drama film written and directed by Neil Jordan;
• Hollow Reed (1996), a drama directed by Angela Pope and set in Bath;
• The Full Monty (1997), a Peter Cattaneo-directed comedy about six unemployed steel workers who decide to form a male striptease act. Dudley won the "Best Original Musical or Comedy Score" Oscar for her music;
• American History X (1998), an American drama directed by Tony Kaye, starring Edward Norton and Edward Furlong;
• Pushing Tin (1999), directed by Mike Newell and starring John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton, a comedy-drama film based around air traffic controllers in New York;
• The Miracle Maker (2000), an animated feature film made for TV by BBC Wales with Russian model makers;
• Lucky Break (2001), a British feelgood comedy starring James Nesbitt and based around a prison escape;
• Monkeybone (2001), an American film combining live-action and stop-motion animation starring Brendan Fraser and Bridget Fonda;
• The Gathering (2002), an Anthony Horowitz thriller directed by Brian Gilbert and starring Christina Ricci;
• The Grotesque (1997), released in the US as Gentlemen Don't Eat Poets a British film starring Alan Bates, Theresa Russell and Sting;
• A Man Apart (2003), starring Vin Diesel;
• Bright Young Things (2003), a British drama written and directed by Stephen Fry based on the novel Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh;
• Black Book (2006), a World War II film directed by Paul Verhoeven;
• Tristan & Isolde (2006), a Ridley Scott romantic drama based on the medieval romantic legend of Tristan and Iseult and starring James Franco and Sophia Myles;
• Perfect Creature (2007), a New Zealand-made horror/thriller film starring Leo Gregory;
• The Walker (2007), a drama written and directed by Paul Schrader set in Washington, D. C.;
• Les Misérables (2012), a blockbuster version of the celebrated long-running musical (music producer / arranger / additional music composer).
• Elle (2016), a French thriller directed by Paul Verhoeven, starring Isabelle Huppert.

Her TV music includes:

• Scores for all episodes of Jeeves and Wooster with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie;
• Lynda La Plante's Above Suspicion;
• Kavanagh QC, an ITV series with John Thaw
• The Tenth Kingdom, an American epic fantasy TV miniseries written by Simon Moore.
• Poldark (2015), a BBC TV series

Session musician work

Dudley has worked as a session musician for many artists, and her string and orchestral arrangements crop up on a diverse array of albums. These include:

• ABC — The Lexicon of Love album (reaching No.1 in the UK charts 1982) and The Lexicon of Love II released May 2016;
• a-ha — string scores for the singles "Hunting High & Low" (7" remix) (1986) and "The Blood That Moves The Body" (1988)
• Oleta Adams — Circle of One album (reaching No.1 in the UK charts 1991);
• Marc Almond — Tenement Symphony album which included the tracks "Jacky" and "The Days of Pearly Spencer";
• The Associates — Wild and Lonely album;
• Rick Astley — Free album;
• B*Witched — Awake and Breathe album;
• Chris Botti — Slowing Down the World album;
• Boyzone — A Different Beat album;
• Cher — It's a Man's World album;
• Petula Clark — "La Vie en Rose" track;
• Lloyd Cole and the Commotions — Rattlesnakes album;
• Andrea Corr — Ten Feet High album;
• Cathy Dennis — Move to This and Into the Skyline albums;
• Electronic — "Getting Away with It" single (reaching No.12 in the UK charts and number 38 in the USA in 1990);
• Frankie Goes to Hollywood — Welcome to the Pleasuredome album which included their 2nd and 3rd No.1s "Two Tribes" and "The Power of Love";
• Elton John — The Big Picture album;
• Martyn Joseph — Being There album;
• Kingmaker — Sleepwalking album;
• Annie Lennox — Medusa album (No.1 in the UK charts 1995); *Let Loose "Best in Me" single;
• Virginia MacNaughton — The Music album;
• Paul McCartney — Press to Play and Give My Regards to Broad Street albums;
• Malcolm McLaren — Duck Rock album;
• The Men They Couldn't Hang — "A Map of Morocco" single;
• George Michael — "Careless Whisper" single (reaching No.1 in 25 countries);
• Liza Minnelli — Results album (reaching No.6 in the UK charts in 1989);
• The Moody Blues — Greatest Hits album;
• Moist — "Gasoline" single;
• Jimmy Nail — Crocodile Shoes album (reaching No.2 in the UK charts in 1994);
• The Painted Word — Lovelife album;
• OMD — Universal album;
• Pet Shop Boys — Very album;
• Propaganda — A Secret Wish album;
• Pulp — Different Class and This Is Hardcore albums (both reaching No.1);
• Rialto — "Monday Morning 5:19" single;
• Frances Ruffelle — "Stranger to the Rain" single;
• S Club — 7 album (No.1 in the UK charts in 2000);
• Scarlet — Naked album;
• Seal — Seal, Seal II and Human Being albums;
• Siphiwo — Hope album (featuring Nelson Mandela on the title track);
• Wendy Stark — Stark album;
• Rod Stewart — A Spanner in the Works and If We Fall in Love Tonight albums, and the single "Downtown Train";
• Suggs — The Lone Ranger album;
• Travis — "More Than Us" EP, featuring Dudley on the title track;
• Tina Turner — Wildest Dreams album;
• Wet Wet Wet — Holding Back the River album (reaching No.2 in the UK charts 1989);
• Wham! — "Everything She Wants" single and "Young Guns (Go for It)", their first hit single;
• Robbie Williams — Reality Killed the Video Star album;
• Will Young — Friday's Child album (reaching No.1 in the UK charts in 2004) and "Leave Right Now" single (reaching No.1 in the UK charts in 2003).

In 2012 Dudley worked as a pianist, orchestrator, producer, and composer of additional music on the film adaptation of the musical Les Misérables.

Awards

In addition to Dudley's Academy Award for The Full Monty, she has received a number of awards and nominations.

• She won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance in 1986, for the Art Of Noise version of "Peter Gunn".
• She has won two Brit Awards: one in 1989 for Buster, for Best British Soundtrack, and one in 1998 for Best Soundtrack (1998), also for The Full Monty.
• She has been nominated for an Ivor Novello Award three times: for Crime Traveller, Best Original Music for Broadcast 1997; for The Key, Best Original Music for Television 2003; and for Trial and Retribution, Best Television Soundtrack 2008.

She was made a Fellow of The Royal College of Music in 2004, and in 2011 was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Kent.

Dudley lives in Hertfordshire, England, with her recording engineer husband Roger Dudley and daughter Angela.

• Buster (1988)
• Songs From the Victorious City (1990) (collaboration with Killing Joke's Jaz Coleman)
• Jeeves and Wooster Album titled "The World of Jeeves & Wooster" (1991)
• The Pope Must Die (1991)
• The Crying Game (1992)
• Felidae (1994)
• Gentlemen Don't Eat Poets (1995)
• American History X (1998)
• Ancient and Modern (1999)
• Pushing Tin (1999)
• The 10th Kingdom (2000)
• A Different Light (2001)
• Monkeybone (2001)
• Seriously Chilled (2003)
• Tristan & Isolde (2006)
• Black Book (2006)