Composer Christopher Gunning Remembered in Live performance with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra hosted by Poirot Actor Philip Jackson
On Sunday 10 March 2024, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra presents a live performance devoted to the reminiscence of composer Christopher Gunning at London’s Cadogan Corridor to boost funds for Assist Musicians.
Christopher Gunning was one of many UK’s most versatile composers and wrote extensively for movie, TV, commercials, and the live performance corridor. His lengthy profession took in preparations for pop stars, well-known industrial campaigns for Martini and Black Magic (amongst many others), TV credit together with Middlemarch, Rebecca and Porterhouse Blue, motion pictures together with La Vie en Rose (for which he gained a BAFTA) and, hottest of all, the theme for the TV collection Poirot, starring David Suchet and Philip Jackson, which is liked by thousands and thousands all over the world. Gunning additionally wrote 13 symphonies, quite a few concertos and different live performance works.
Gunning died in March 2023, aged 78, and on this particular live performance, buddies, household, and beloved colleagues pay tribute to his extraordinary expertise. The entire vary of Gunning’s work will probably be represented, from adverts to symphonies and all the things in between, carried out by particular visitors and with recollections from his family and friends.
Hosted by actor Philip Jackson (well-known for his function as Chief Inspector Japp in each the tv collection of Agatha Christie’s Poirot and in BBC Radio dramatisations of the Poirot tales), and beneath the baton of conductor Kenneth Woods, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra will probably be joined by star soloists together with guitarist John Williams; singer-songwriter Colin Blunstone, lead singer of the Sixties band the Zombies; oboist Verity Gunning-Olsson; pianist Dave Arch, finest often called MD of Strictly Come Dancing; and cellist Richard Harwood amongst others.
The live performance programme will embrace the theme from Poirot, iconic TV adverts for Martini and Black Magic and his concertos and symphonic works. The live performance may also see the world premiere of Gunning’s Lament for Cello and Piano, written shortly earlier than his demise, and a whole efficiency of his Symphony No.10.
Tickets might be bought right here by CLICKING HERE. Income from the live performance will go on to Assist Musicians, a charity very near Christopher Gunning’s coronary heart. The charity helps skilled musicians from all genres at instances of disaster, in work and in retirement.
About Christopher Gunning
Christopher Gunning was a prolific British composer with a ardour for writing large-scale symphonic works, extra intimate live performance items, and movie and TV scores. In his live performance music he developed a person but approachable, vibrant, and extremely expressive language which regularly offers his music a strongly dramatic and emotional flavour.
In movie, he labored on all kinds of productions, starting from interval to modern dramas and wildlife movies, and gained many awards for his work.
Gunning’s profession frequently developed since he studied composition with Edmund Rubbra and Richard Rodney Bennett on the Guildhall College of Music and Drama. Though he got down to be a composer of great live performance music, he quickly turned concerned within the media, writing the scores for quite a few commercials, tv dramas, and movies. He additionally offered characterful preparations for well-known recording artists.
Extremely thought to be a movie and TV composer, Christopher Gunning is finest often called the author of the enduring signature theme for ‘Agatha Christie’s Poirot’ and evocative music for Olivier Dahan’s ‘La Vie En Rose.’ Typically immediately recognisable, Gunning’s movie and TV music additionally contains ‘Rosemary & Thyme’, ‘Goodbye Gemini’, ‘Wild Africa’, ‘Firelight’, ‘When the Whales Got here’, ‘Karaoke’ and ‘Chilly Lazarus’. With a profession spanning 40 years, he was a recipient of 4 BAFTA Awards for ‘La Vie en Rose’, ‘Agatha Christie’s Poirot’, ‘Middlemarch’ and ‘Porterhouse Blue’, and three Ivor Novello Awards for ‘Rebecca’, ‘Below Suspicion’, and ‘Firelight’, and a Czech Lion for ‘La Vie En Rose’. He was additionally commissioned to write down the rating for ‘Grace of Monaco’ that was composed and recorded early in 2013. The movie was directed by Olivier Dahan and stars Nicole Kidman and Tim Roth.
A set of Gunning’s music for movies and TV is to be discovered on the Chandos label: ‘The Movie and TV Music of Christopher Gunning’. The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra is carried out by Rumon Gamba.
Gunning later returned to the very totally different world of live performance music and gained excessive reward for his work. First got here the Saxophone Concerto ‘On Hungerford Bridge’, recorded by main saxophonist John Harle. It was impressed by a summer season night’s stroll throughout Hungerford Bridge, when he heard a saxophonist busking in opposition to the sounds of town. Gramophone Journal remarked that it was ‘Probably the most putting work, by far: this can be a haunting work, ending as magnetically because it opens.’ This was carefully adopted by his First Piano Concerto, and Symphonies Nos. 1 and a pair of. But it surely was with Symphonies Nos. 3 and 4, and his Concerto for Oboe and Strings, launched on the Chandos label, that Gunning actually attracted consideration.
Christopher Gunning’s information and influences had been broadly eclectic and ranged from pop music, jazz and movie music to Ravel, Bartok, Stravinsky, Ginastera and Lutoslawski. He argued that it ought to be potential to attract on varied methods to specific all kinds of feelings.
Gunning went on to compose six additional symphonies following his fascination with a single-movement kind damaged into a number of sub-sections.
Gunning additionally loved a vibrant profession in conducting and labored with performers and ensembles akin to guitarists John Williams and Craig Ogden, violinist Anja Bukovec, saxophonist John Harle, pianist Olga Dudnik, oboist Verity Gunning, flautist Catherine Handley, and clarinetist Michael Whight. He labored with the London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC Live performance Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Mephisto ensemble, Nice Arts Brass, Manchester Camerata, Finchley Kids’s Music Group, and Winchester School Choir.
Jim Pritchard writes: It was a pleasure to know the multi-talented and much-missed Christopher Gunning – if solely just about – when he reviewed for Seen and Heard Worldwide.
