Composer's Details

Name:
Anne Dudley
Born:
7.5. 1956

Biography

Anne Dudley was born Anne Jennifer Valentino in Beckenham, Kent on 7th May 1956 and is the sister of musician, actor, model Bobby Valentino. As a child, she learnt to play the piano after her parents purchased one to fill up an empty wall in their home. Later on she studied for three years at the Royal College Of Music where she achieved a Performer?s Diploma and was awarded the B. Mus prize for having the highest marks of her year. Anne then went on to spend a year at King?s College where she was awarded a Masters Degree. During her time studying music she used to play in jazz and pop bands at night. It was playing in one of those bands that she met her husband, Roger and future record producer Trevor Horn of whom she would have a long-term professional relationship. The young musician was interested in all forms of music and why certain records would sound different from others, an interest that would become essential in her career.

Anne's first break in music came when she was around twenty one years old and became the pianist on the long running BBC children?s television Playschool. In the early 1980s she was signed upto Amphonic Music to compose music for their Sound Stage music library series of albums that were made for stage productions. As part of Horn?s production team she worked as an arranger on various pop classics including Dollar, and worked on the classic album The Lexicon Of Love by ABC along with engineer Gary Langan and Fairlight programmer J.J. Jeczalik. Around this time she arranged the brass on Wham!?s first hit Young Guns (Go For It) before getting involved with Malcolm McLaren?s groundbreaking album, Duck Rock, again with Horn, Jeczalik & Langan.

Shortly after that release she was credited on the sleeve of the hit Past, Present And Future by Cindy & The Saffrons before Horn roped her into a project calling itself the Art of Noise created by Langan & Jeczalik, where they would change the face of music forever. Art of Noise were signed to ZTT. During her time there she worked with Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Paul McCartney, George Michael, Blancmange, Lloyd Cole and The Commotions along with writing for Five Star and Helen Terry. After leaving ZTT in 1985 until the demise of the Art of Noise she worked with even more diverse artists including A-Ha, Electronic, Johnny Hates Jazz, Tom Jones, Moody Blues, Liza Minnelli, and Kenny Rodgers. After she & Jeczalik scored the music for the film Disorderlies in 1987, Anne branched out a career as a film composer starting with the film Hiding Out and achieved great success with the British movie Buster starring Phil Collins and also produced his single A Groovy Kind Of Love from the Brit Award winning Buster soundtrack album. In the following year she scored more music for another four films, Wilt, The Mighty Quinn, Silence Like Glass and Say Anything?

In 1990 after she and Jeczalik went their separate ways, Anne teamed up for a one-off collaboration with ex-Killing Joke member Jaz Coleman and recorded an album entitled Songs From The Victorious City. The album was recorded in Cairo and London. In total three singles were released from the album, Minarets And Memories, Habebe and Ziggarats Of Cinnamon was issued on TVT Records in the USA. The album was a mixture of Egyptian and Western classical style music featuring musicians from Cairo, although in some parts sounded a little like Art of Noise the album had it's own unique style, that would later be incorporated into the music of Enigma. In the same year she composed the score for the film The Pope Must Die. She also branched out into composing for television shows including Rory Bremner, Jeeves & Wooster and continuing to provide the music for The Krypton Factor as well as conducting the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra during the Tribute to John Lennon concert.

The decade saw Anne working once again with Horn, and continued to work with more artists such as Marc Almond, Oleta Adams, Cathy Dennis, Cher, Suggs, David Gilmour, Debbie Harry, k.d. Lang, Moloko, Scarlet, Rod Stewart, TMN, OMD, Pet Shop Boys, Luciana, Seal, S-Club 7, Spice Girls, Annie Lennox and Rick Astley in between scoring more music for cinema and television including The Miracle, Knight Moves, The Crying Game, Anna Lee, Kavenagh Q.C., Felidae, When Saturday Comes, The Sadness Of Sex, Hollow Reed, Gentlemen Don?t Eat Poets before scoring an Oscar for her score to the hit British movie The Full Monty in 1997. Towards the end of the decade Anne, Horn & Paul Morley reformed the Art of Noise with Lol Creme. Anne also scored the music for two further films American History X and Pushing Tin in between the release of the new Art of Noise album and tour before the group disbanded.

The 2000s so far has seen Anne compose even more scores for film and television with The Miracle Maker, The Tenth Kingdom, Monkeybone, Lucky Break, A Man Apart, Black Book, Tristan & Isolde among others. In 2001 Anne recorded A Different Light, her first album since Ancient And Modern in 1995. Unlike Ancient And Modern that contained choral music with modern classical styles, A Different Light saw Anne re-work some of her best compositions from her career included an orchestral arrangement of the classic Art of Noise track Moments In Love as well as music from her various film scores. The following year she was made the first Composer-in-Association with the BBC Concert Orchestra which led to her releasing the album Seriously Chilled containing modern chill out & pop music originally recorded by the likes of Moby, Enigma, Deep Forest and Robert Miles to name but a few. The music was re-arranged into classical arrangements in the form of medleys giving a whole new twist to popular chill out music.

The Royal College Of Music awarded Anne with a prestigious Fellowship in recognition of her outstanding career in 2004 and in that year was part of the house-band for the Prince?s Trust Concert celebrating 25 years of Trevor Horn's career as a record producer. In 2006 the BBC made a three part radio series about her entitled Close (To The Edit) which was the story of her career as a musician, arranger, composer and producer. The series featured interviews with Anne herself, including contributions from Trevor Horn, Tom Jones, Stephen Fry and Martin Fry. In the same year, the Dutch film director Paul Verhoeven chose Anne to compose the music for his wartime movie Black Book. The director was so impressed by her ability to be able to change her styles of music for whatever film score she did, that he knew she was the perfect composer for his film.

Anne continues to work as an arranger, composer and producer. She has also worked with the likes of Will Young and ex-Yazoo vocalist Alison Moyet. She also collaborated with Stephen Fry on a pantomime, after working with him on Bright Young Things. On the 24th and 26th February 2007 Anne conducted the BBC Concert Orchestra when she teamed up with comedian, actor, musician Bill Bailey. In early 2008 the television series Trial And Retribution aired that featured yet another music score by Anne. In addition to that, she composed the music for the BBC-iPlayer film about flying penguins that was broadcast on April Fool's Day. In October 2008 Anne once again teamed up with Bailey for his Remarkable Guide To The Orchestra shows at the Royal Albert Hall and at the Brighton Dome. The same month saw Anne involved with the BBC's Electric Proms season.

Anne returned once again to the Royal Albert Hall, conducting the BBC Concert Orchestra in April 2009 when ABC performed their classic The Lexicon Of Love album which also featured fellow Art of Noise members, Trevor Horn introducing and playing on some of the tracks with Gary Langan on sound.