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Craig Pruess (born 1950) is an American composer, musician, arranger and gold & platinum record producer who has been living in Britain since 1973. His career has covered diverse areas including: record production for international stars such as Sir Cliff Richard, Anu Malik, Sarah Brightman, Sheila Walsh (whose first album, "War of Love" was produced and arranged by Craig and was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1983); musical arrangements for Massive Attack, Def Leppard, Bond; feature film soundtrack music (Bride & Prejudice, Bend It Like Beckham, What's Cooking?, Bhaji on the Beach); world music producing, performing (sitar, keyboards and African percussion) and arranging for international acts such as Massive Attack, Katie Melua, Manic Street Preachers, Def Leppard and Pascal Obispo; television music ("Peak Practice", "Sue Lawley Show", "Rich Deceiver", "ZigZag Kenya", "Samson Superslug") and also arranging, sitar and sound design work (for such well known composers as Danny Elfman, Gabriel Yared, Patrick Doyle, Carl Davis, John Altman, Rachel Portman, and George Fenton); television and film advertising/corporate music (over 300 commercials to date); lecturing and teaching; concert performing (solo and with his own ensembles but also with Mike Oldfield for the world premiere of "Tubular Bells II", September 1992, at the Edinburgh Castle); sound engineering, synthesizer and computer music programming, sound design and music technology innovations.

Craig has composed the original music score for a string of major films by Gurinder Chadha's , including her number one UK box office smash hit films, "Bend It Like Beckham" (top ten in the USA box office, number 1 in India), and "Bride & Prejudice". Craig scored her previous films, including "Bhaji on the Beach" (1993) and "What's Cooking?", which opened the big US Sundance Film Festival, January 2000 and released throughout the USA in October 2000, to critical acclaim (UK release was September 2001). Gurinder Chadha's big romantic Bollywood influenced feature film, "Bride and Prejudice", stars the big names of Aishwayra Rai, Anupam Kher and Martin Henderson, released by Miramax (USA) and Pathe (Europe) in October 2003, again was number one in the UK, India and South Africa, settling for number 15 for 3 weeks in the USA. Aishwayra Rai is again the big star in Craig's further film score project, "The Mistress of Spices", directed by Paul Berges, which was released in the UK and India early 2006. Craig has scored Gurinder's latest feature film, "It's a Wonderful Afterlife", which is for a spring 2010 world-wide release.

In 2009, Craig was nominated for Best Soundtrack at the RTS Awards (Royal Television Society) for his acclaimed BBC-TV drama series music, "Moses Jones". Since the series, he has teamed up with talented Ugandan musicians, Denis Mugagga and Daniel Sewagudde (formerly of DaTwinz fame in Africa), to create the group the Ganda Boys, with an album "The War of Love" released in 2009, and live shows in London. Craig is scoring the high profile BBC-TV drama series, "Five Days", for Jan 2010.

Brazilian music featured in Craig's 2006 soundtrack: 90 minute Discovery Channel docu-drama "Gold Diggers - The Biggest Bank Robbery in History". An edgy, fast paced expose of the 2005 massive bank robbery in Fortelesa, Brazil, directed by British director James Erskine. Featuring energetic Brazilian rhythms and tribal percussion layers, along with a filmic, hard-hitting music score, the program itself has become part of the police investigation in Brazil! In 2007, Craig composed the soundtrack for Turner Prize nominated artist Zarina Bhimji's film "Waiting"), which became part of the prestigious Turner Prize exhibition in Liverpool during October 2007.

As a songwriter, Craig has penned the Christmas No. 1 UK chart single (December 1999/January 2000), one of the double A sides ("Two Worlds"), part of Sir Cliff Richard's chart hit, "Millennium Prayer" (sales over one million). In November 1999, Craig was nominated to be the composer for the most successful independent television drama series in British history, "Peak Practice", completing the very last four series (13 episodes each) for Carlton Television until its conclusion in 2002.

In 2000, Craig contributed keyboards and sounds for composer John Altman on the US television film, "RKO 281 - the Making of Citizen Kane", which received 13 nominations for the Emmy Awards, winning the Emmy for best music soundtrack for 2000. Craig worked in his home studio with the director of the film, Ben Ross, to record and perform the initial music sketches, and then also played keyboards with the orchestra for the final recordings of the soundtrack in London.

Craig is the director/founder of the UK record label Heaven on Earth Music, and is an active Art of Living teacher for many years. He is married with four children, and has lived in Wiltshire, UK, for many years. He is also a painter, photographer, graphic designer and poet.

[edit] Discography

• Sacred Chants of Shiva
• Sacred Chants of Buddha

[edit] Credits

• 1985: Profiles - Rick Fenn and Nick Mason - emulator brass on "Malta"
• 1992: Tubular Bells II Live - Mike Oldfield - Keyboards
• 1996: Slang - Deff Leppard - String and percussion arranging and conducting "Turn to Dust"
• 1998: This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours - Manic Street Preachers - Sitar and tanpura (track 5)
• 2003: 100th Window -Massive Attack - String conduction, Orchestra arrangement
• 2005: Piece by Piece - Katie Melua - Sitar ("Halfway up the Hindu Kush")
• 2006: Collected - Massive Attack - Strings arrangement (Track 7)

[edit] Filmography

• Bhaji on the Beach (1993)
• What Do You Call an Indian Woman Who's Funny (1994)
• Rich Deceiver (1995) (TV)
• What's Cooking? (2000)
• Bend It Like Beckham (2002)
• "Peak Practice" (52 episodes, 2000-2002)
• The Calligrapher (2004)
• Bride & Prejudice (2004)
• The Mistress of Spices (2005)
• Scream of the Ants (2006)

[edit] External links

• Craig Pruess at the Internet Movie Database
• Heaven on Earth Music, Official website