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
& La
ngan.
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 Bustersoundtrack 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 andZiggarats 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
filmThe 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.
