Terry Oldfield

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Terry Oldfield

Terence "Terry" Oldfield (born 12 August 1949) is an English composer. He is brother to well known music composers and performers Mike Oldfield and Sally Oldfield. Terry and his siblings were raised in the Roman Catholic faith of their mother, Maureen.

Terry Oldfield was born in London, England and spent his childhood partly in Dublin and partly in Reading, Berkshire. He later attended a Benedictine Monastery School. His earliest musical experiences were in the myriad of folk clubs spring-up around the UK in the late 60s and early 70s, listening to the songs of Leonard Cohen, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Bob Dylan.

Terry left school at 16 to travel the world and worked as a roadie for various bands including the Byrds, setting-up stage and sound mixing systems. During an extended stay on the Greek island of Hydra, he took up his first musical instrument, the flute. "I think it was learning to play in this way, with no formal guidance, that allowed me to develop the ability to compose music. I spent many happy days improvising tunes and discovering scales and arpeggios for myself, and soon started to teach myself to write these things down". Terry's only formal music training was in Agra, India where he spent some time learning to play the Tabla.

In the early 70s, Terry and his brother Mike formed a band called 'Barefoot' playing rock'n'roll at colleges and clubs throughout the UK. Mike later went on to record the highly successful 'Tubular Bells' and later Terry played the flute in the famous live performance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London.

Terry's career began in earnest when he was asked by the BBC to compose music for scenes called Great Railway Journeys of the World. Since then Terry has composed music for over 50 film and TV productions, receiving two Emmy nominations for Land of the Tiger and Twilight of the Dreamtime and a BAFTA nomination for the BBC series Kingdom of the Ice Bear. He also worked on Meerkats United, which in a recent National Television Poll was voted 'Best Wildlife Film Ever'.

Terry had a relationship with New World Music, one of the world's leading 'World' music labels, for over 10 years and has a back catalogue of over 15 recordings. In 2001, Terry signed a multi-record contract with New Earth Records in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His work contains an enormous range of ideas and influences and has sold over 1 million units worldwide.

Currently Terry has been looking at new directions to take his music. "Recently I have found the advent of Global music very inspiring. Especially the Amnesty International Concerts". Terry's future releases with New World Music will reflect this new direction and no doubt increase his already considerable following.

Well known for his prolific work in film and TV soundtracks, including the Emmy award nominated National Geographic specials: "Land of the Tiger" and "Twilight of the Dream Time" and his BAFTA nominated "Kingdom of the Ice Bear".

In 2001, Terry moved to Australia.