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Craig Pruess is a Sound American born on 18 december 1950 at White Plains (USA)
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 Anu Malik, Sir Cliff Richard, 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, It's a Wonderful Afterlife, 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 two 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", starring the big names of Aishwarya Rai, Anupam Kher and Martin Henderson, was released by Miramax (USA) and Pathé (Europe) in October 2003, and again was number one in the UK, India and South Africa, settling for number 15 for 3 weeks in the USA. Aishwarya Rai was again the big star in Craig's further film score project, "The Mistress of Spices", directed by Paul Mayeda Berges, which was released in the UK and India early 2006. Craig has scored Gurinder's latest feature film, "It's a Wonderful Afterlife", April 2010 box office release, the film reaching number 7 in the UK.
In 2009, Craig was nominated for Best Soundtrack at the RTS Awards (Royal Television Society) for his music for the acclaimed BBC-TV drama series, "Moses Jones", which also garnered Craig a British Academy Award nomination for Best Original Music in May 2010. 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 UK, France, Germany and Uganda, and with the release of their second album, "Africa", extensive national radio play and media coverage in Uganda. Craig is a core performing member and band leader of the group and co-writes the songs and arranges and produces all the recordings. Craig scored the high profile BBC-TV drama series, "Five Days II", broadcast in Jan 2010. Between 2007 and present, Craig has formed another world fusion ambient music band, At-Ma, with seasoned professional singer, Russell Stone, and complete with tabla maestro, Tom Simenauer, they give concerts in the UK and Europe, headlining the Warsaw Philharmonic in Nov 2010. Craig performs on sitar, harmonium, trumpet and percussion in a totally spontaneous and fluid musical output which delights audiences with its freshness and evocative colours.
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. In late 2011, Craig completed his third art film soundtrack for her, "Yellow Patch", charting the origins of the migration of the Gujurati people from Kutch, India, to East Africa. Zarina was born in Uganda and has so poetically captured images from her African experience.
As a songwriter, Craig has penned David Van Day's chart hit, "Young American's Talking". For Cliff Richard, Craig also wrote the title track "Silver's Home Tonight" on the 1983 album, Silver; and "Two Worlds", an additional track (equivalent to a B-side) on the Christmas hit, "The Millennium Prayer". 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 2003.
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. His "Sacred Chants" series of recordings is known globally and used by many leaders of the human development movement in their motivational and inspiration work. Craig has performed sitar concerts for Prince Charles (at his home at Highgrove for a personal concert), the Dalai Lama (large event at the Houses of Parliament, London), Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (founder of the Art of Living Foundation), in Copenhagen, Denmark and then Zagreb, Croatia, and then at the huge World Culture Festival, Olympic Stadium, Berlin, Germany in July 2011). Yoga and spiritual teachers/leaders around the world use his music CDs for sessions, videos and workshops — these include: "Language of Love", "Welcome Home", "108 Sacred Names of Mother Divine", "Sacred Chants of Shiva", "Angel of the Earth" and "Sacred Chants of Buddha".
Craig is an active Art of Living teacher for many years, the first teacher to bring the Art of Living stress management courses into high security prisons in the UK. He has taught these valuable programmes at the headquarters of British Aerospace and introduced the Art of Living knowledge to many musicians, film directors, thinkers and teachers. His home environment includes a fully equipped recording studio and composing suite of instruments and gadgets. He is married with four children, and lives in Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK. He is also a photographer, graphic designer and published poet. He originally studied physics and philosophy at MIT in Boston, and after leaving the USA, lived in Kenya, where he was a full time member of the teaching staff at the East African Conservatoire of Music in Nairobi. He is founder and director/CEO of the humanitarian organisation, the Ganda Foundation, started by the Ganda Boys, involved with fundraising concerts and activities to bring First World awareness to dire conditions in the Third World. The Ganda Foundation creates films and documentaries and holds fundraising concerts in Europe, and the work of the organisation has directly benefited hospitals and schools in Uganda.
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Craig Pruess
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Craig has composed the original music score for a string of major films by Gurinder Chadha's, including her two 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", starring the big names of Aishwarya Rai, Anupam Kher and Martin Henderson, was released by Miramax (USA) and Pathé (Europe) in October 2003, and again was number one in the UK, India and South Africa, settling for number 15 for 3 weeks in the USA. Aishwarya Rai was again the big star in Craig's further film score project, "The Mistress of Spices", directed by Paul Mayeda Berges, which was released in the UK and India early 2006. Craig has scored Gurinder's latest feature film, "It's a Wonderful Afterlife", April 2010 box office release, the film reaching number 7 in the UK.
In 2009, Craig was nominated for Best Soundtrack at the RTS Awards (Royal Television Society) for his music for the acclaimed BBC-TV drama series, "Moses Jones", which also garnered Craig a British Academy Award nomination for Best Original Music in May 2010. 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 UK, France, Germany and Uganda, and with the release of their second album, "Africa", extensive national radio play and media coverage in Uganda. Craig is a core performing member and band leader of the group and co-writes the songs and arranges and produces all the recordings. Craig scored the high profile BBC-TV drama series, "Five Days II", broadcast in Jan 2010. Between 2007 and present, Craig has formed another world fusion ambient music band, At-Ma, with seasoned professional singer, Russell Stone, and complete with tabla maestro, Tom Simenauer, they give concerts in the UK and Europe, headlining the Warsaw Philharmonic in Nov 2010. Craig performs on sitar, harmonium, trumpet and percussion in a totally spontaneous and fluid musical output which delights audiences with its freshness and evocative colours.
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. In late 2011, Craig completed his third art film soundtrack for her, "Yellow Patch", charting the origins of the migration of the Gujurati people from Kutch, India, to East Africa. Zarina was born in Uganda and has so poetically captured images from her African experience.
As a songwriter, Craig has penned David Van Day's chart hit, "Young American's Talking". For Cliff Richard, Craig also wrote the title track "Silver's Home Tonight" on the 1983 album, Silver; and "Two Worlds", an additional track (equivalent to a B-side) on the Christmas hit, "The Millennium Prayer". 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 2003.
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. His "Sacred Chants" series of recordings is known globally and used by many leaders of the human development movement in their motivational and inspiration work. Craig has performed sitar concerts for Prince Charles (at his home at Highgrove for a personal concert), the Dalai Lama (large event at the Houses of Parliament, London), Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (founder of the Art of Living Foundation), in Copenhagen, Denmark and then Zagreb, Croatia, and then at the huge World Culture Festival, Olympic Stadium, Berlin, Germany in July 2011). Yoga and spiritual teachers/leaders around the world use his music CDs for sessions, videos and workshops — these include: "Language of Love", "Welcome Home", "108 Sacred Names of Mother Divine", "Sacred Chants of Shiva", "Angel of the Earth" and "Sacred Chants of Buddha".
Craig is an active Art of Living teacher for many years, the first teacher to bring the Art of Living stress management courses into high security prisons in the UK. He has taught these valuable programmes at the headquarters of British Aerospace and introduced the Art of Living knowledge to many musicians, film directors, thinkers and teachers. His home environment includes a fully equipped recording studio and composing suite of instruments and gadgets. He is married with four children, and lives in Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK. He is also a photographer, graphic designer and published poet. He originally studied physics and philosophy at MIT in Boston, and after leaving the USA, lived in Kenya, where he was a full time member of the teaching staff at the East African Conservatoire of Music in Nairobi. He is founder and director/CEO of the humanitarian organisation, the Ganda Foundation, started by the Ganda Boys, involved with fundraising concerts and activities to bring First World awareness to dire conditions in the Third World. The Ganda Foundation creates films and documentaries and holds fundraising concerts in Europe, and the work of the organisation has directly benefited hospitals and schools in Uganda.
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Filmography of Craig Pruess (6 films)
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It's a Wonderful Afterlife (2010)
, 1h40Directed by Gurinder Chadha
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Comedy, Romance
Actors Goldy Notay, Shabana Azmi, Sally Hawkins, Goldy Notay, Sendhil Ramamurthy, Zoë Wanamaker
Roles Original Music Composer
Rating53%
Mrs. Sethi (Shabana Azmi) is a widow living in Southall who wants to marry off her only daughter, for she is alone and unhappy. Her daughter, Roopi, (Goldy Notay) is a little plump and opinionated. Mrs. Sethi finds that all her matchmaking efforts are rudely rejected. She avenges this behaviour toward her daughter by murdering the failed dates using her culinary skills. A police hunt begins for a serial murderer using a killer curry.
The Mistress of Spices (2005)
, 1h36Directed by Paul Mayeda Berges, Gurinder Chadha
Genres Drama, Fantasy, Romance
Actors Aishwarya Rai, Dylan McDermott, Ayesha Dharker, Nitin Ganatra, Anupam Kher, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje
Roles Original Music Composer
Rating55%
Tilo (Aishwarya Rai), an immigrant from India, is a shopkeeper, an unusually strong clairvoyant, and a chosen Mistress of Spices. The Spices she gives to her customers help them to satisfy their certain needs and desires, such as "sandalwood to dispel painful memories; black cumin seed to protect against evil eye."
Bride & Prejudice (2004)
, 1h51Directed by Gurinder Chadha
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Drama, Comedy, Romantic comedy, Musical, Romance
Themes Films about families, Films about music and musicians, Musical films
Actors Aishwarya Rai, Martin Henderson, Anupam Kher, Naveen Andrews, Namrata Shirodkar, Sonali Kulkarni
Roles Original Music Composer
Rating62%
The plot is based on Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice. Some character names remain the same, while others are changed slightly, using localized names with similar pronunciation (such as Lalita for Elizabeth).
Bend It Like Beckham (2002)
, 1h52Directed by Gurinder Chadha
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Drama, Comedy, Comedy-drama, Romantic comedy, Romance
Themes Films about alcoholism, Feminist films, Films about immigration, Sports films, La précarité, Association football films, Political films, Buddy films, Children's films
Actors Parminder Nagra, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Keira Knightley, Archie Panjabi, Anupam Kher, Preeya Kalidas
Roles Original Music Composer
Rating66%
Jesminder "Jess" Bhamra is the 18-year-old daughter of Punjabi Sikh Indians from Hounslow in west London. Jess is infatuated with football but her parents have forbidden her to play because she is a girl. She plays in the park sometimes with her good friend Tony, and his buddies, where her skills draw the attention of Juliette "Jules" Paxton, who plays for the women's team of the local club, the fictional Hounslow Harriers. Their coach, Joe, is impressed with her play and puts her on the team. Jess pretends to have a job to play with the team and Jules and Jess become best friends, despite the fact that both are attracted to Joe. Jess enlists her sister Pinky to cover for her when the team travels to Germany for a big match, but everything unravels when Jules spies Joe and Jess almost kiss, causing a breach between them, and Jess's parents find out and forbid her to continue. Meanwhile, Jules's mother wrongly thinks Jules is a lesbian and the girls' spat is a lovers' quarrel. Jess's parents are confronted by a similar accusation before Jess reveals the truth about her attraction to Joe. While the elder Bhamras are distracted by the elaborate preparations for Pinky's upcoming wedding, Jess continues to play and the Hounslow Harriers make their way towards the top of the league. Joe encourages Jess to come clean with her parents and eventually approaches Mr. Bhamra to explain she has a chance to win a prestigious scholarship, but Mr. Bhamra refuses to believe it. Jess and Jules must sort their differences, make peace with their parents, and overcome cultural prejudice to win the league championship, and earn scholarships to Santa Clara University in California.
What's Cooking? (2000)
, 1h49Directed by Gurinder Chadha
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Drama, Comedy, Comedy-drama, Romance
Themes Cooking films, Films about sexuality, LGBT-related films, LGBT-related films, LGBT-related film, Lesbian-related films
Actors Mercedes Ruehl, Kyra Sedgwick, Joan Chen, Victor Rivers, Julianna Margulies, Douglas Spain
Roles Original Music Composer
Rating67%
On Thanksgiving day, four ethnically diverse families -- Vietnamese, Latino, Jewish, and African American — gather for the traditional meal. Each family has its own distinct way of cooking the traditional holiday meal and its own set of problems.
Bhaji on the Beach (1994)
, 1h41Directed by Gurinder Chadha
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Drama, Comedy
Actors Kim Vithana, Jimmi Harkishin, Akbar Kurtha, Shaheen Khan, Zohra Sehgal, Rudolph Walker
Roles Original Music Composer
Rating63%
A community group of British women (mostly Punjabis of various faiths) of all generations from Great Britain, take a group day out to the Blackpool Illuminations. The tensions of the generation gap torn between tradition and modernism as well as the personal upsets and issues of the women and girls come to boiling point as they spend the day out.