Richard Harvey
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- For the surgeon and researcher see Richard Harvey (surgeon)
| Richard Harvey | |
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 Richard Harvey attends the premiere of King Naresuan.
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| Born | September 25, 1953 London, England  |
| Occupation | Composer |
Richard Harvey (born September 25, 1953) is a renowned British musician and composer. He is best known for his film and television soundtracks.
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[edit] Early life and career
Born in London, Harvey soon became involved in music, learning the recorder when he was four years old and later playing clarinet in the British Youth Symphony Orchestra[1] . By the time he graduated from London's Royal College of Music in 1972, he was accomplished in the recorder flute, krumhorn, and other medieval and Renaissance-era instruments as well as the mandolin and various keyboards. He could have joined the London Philharmonic Orchestra but instead he chose to work with Musica Reservata, an early music ensemble. Subsequently he met another RCM graduate, Brian Gulland and went on to form the progressive rock and folk band Gryphon. During that period he also worked with other folk rock musicians such as Richard and Linda Thompson and Ashley Hutchings. When Gryphon wound down in the late 1970s he became a session musician playing on Kate Bush's Lionheart, Gerry Rafferty's Night Owl and Gordon Giltrap's Fear of the Dark and Peacock Party amongst others.
[edit] Film and television career
After working with film composer Maurice Jarre in the mid 1970s he became involved in composing for film and television. His first work was to provide music for the television series Tales of the Unexpected in 1979. In the subsequent 27 years he has supplied scores to over 70 television and film projects.
Notable works include 1985's Defence of the Realm, Alan Bleasdale's G.B.H in 1991 which he co-wrote with Elvis Costello and most recently in 2006 Ron Howard's The Da Vinci Code and Gabriel Range's Death of a President.
In addition he has been a musician on such films as The Lion King, Enemy of the State and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Harvey is also a prolific composer of production music.
[edit] Other projects
In 1984 he was a conductor on one of the series of Classic Rock albums by the London Symphony Orchestra. He has worked with John Williams a number of times, most recently on his 2002 album Magic Box. He also played on the 2004 album The Opera Band by pop/classical crossover act Amici Forever, which reached #74 on the Billboard Top 200 albums and #2 on the Billboard Top Classical crossover chart. Most recently he worked again with Elvis Costello on his 2006 album My Flame Burns Blue. A skilled multi-instrumentalist he has a collection of over 600 different instruments from around the world [2]
[edit] Career highlights
- 1984 Principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra for "Classic Rock"
- 1988 Regular member of John Williams and Friends
- 1989 Composed Oratorio Plague and the Moonflower (to libretto by Ralph Steadman performed in Exeter, Salisbury, Canterbury and St Paul's Cathedrals, and recipient of Best BBC TV Art's Film in 1990)
- 1991 British Academy award for the score for GBH (with Elvis Costello)
- 1991 Composed A Time of Miracles for W11 Opera
- 1995 Composed Concerto Antico for John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra
- 1996 Performed all featured woodwind solos on the score for The Lion King
- 1999 Composed the score for the Jim Henson Company's Animal Farm
- 2000 Composed score for the acclaimed Hallmark project Arabian Nights
- 2001 Composed score for the Thai historical epic The Legend of Suriyothai
- 2002 Composed score for feature film Luther
- 2004 Subhanahongsa Award from the Federation of National Film Associations of Thailand for The Macabre Case of Prom Piram.
- 2005 Composed Ivor Novello nominated score for feature length drama, Colditz
- 2005 Composed score for feature film Three aka Survival Island
- 2006 Composed score for Death of a President, International Critics' Award winning film at Toronto Film Festival (September 2006)
- 2007 Composed score for King Naresuan, the follow-up to Suriyothai.
