Three-time Grammy Award winner Jeremy Lubbock to attend Guildhall Studio Orchestra concert celebrating his music

Wednesday 27 March at 7pm, Milton Court Concert Hall

Guildhall School of Music & Drama welcomes three-time Grammy Award winner Jeremy Lubbock to its concert celebrating the composer and arranger on Wednesday 27 March, as he relocates back to the UK. Lubbock has written and arranged for the best-known names in the music business, including Barbra Streisand, Minnie Riperton, Quincy Jones and Joni Mitchell. His film soundtrack contributions include for The Color Purple, Twister, Miracle on 34th Street and Rocky IV.

Jeremy’s younger brother John Lubbock, founder of the Orchestra of St John’s, conducts Guildhall Studio Orchestra in a programme including music from Jeremy Lubbock’s album Awakenings, originally recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra, and well-known songs arranged by him for the likes of Barbra Streisand, Ray Charles and Al Jarreau. The evening also features tributes from some of the many artists who have worked with Jeremy over the years.

Special guests include Liane Carroll, celebrated jazz singer and Guildhall visiting professor; Tommy Blaize, lead singer on BBC One’s Strictly Come Dancing; and pianist Derek Paravicini who performs Moods for piano and strings, the work Jeremy wrote especially for him. Paravicini is a musical savant: blind with severe learning difficulties and autism, and the gift of an extraordinary musical ear and memory. Once a child prodigy who taught himself to play the piano aged two, he now brings his unique musical interpretations to audiences around the world, with a particular flair for jazz, pop and light music.

This concert has been devised by Malcolm Edmonstone, Head of Jazz at Guildhall School together with Jeremy’s close friends Ralph Salmins, Guildhall Professor of Drum Kit, and the distinguished record producer Haydn Bendall. Haydn was Chief Engineer at Abbey Road Studios for ten years, and brings his expertise to the audio production of this concert.

Jeremy Lubbock says: “I am thrilled and honoured to be called upon by an institution as distinguished as Guildhall School of Music & Drama to offer them my music. I am so looking forward to the concert!”

Malcolm Edmonstone, Head of Jazz at Guildhall School says: “This concert has been a long time in the planning, and it was a no brainer for Haydn Bendall, Ralph Salmins and me to celebrate the music of this amazing musician, who has been one of the architects of American popular music in the second half of the 20^th century through his arranging and considerable output as a composer.

When we approached his brother John, founder of the Orchestra of St John’s, we were delighted that he agreed to conduct. The evening will mark an incredibly poignant moment in the lives of the two brothers as they celebrate Jeremy’s return to the UK.”

Born in London, Jeremy Lubbock displayed an extraordinary gift for music in early childhood, exposed to music age three, when his father, a fine classical musician himself, began ear-training exercises for his son that soon developed into a wide appreciation of and a consuming passion for musical exploration and composition. Although the first 16 years of his musician life were devoted almost entirely to classical music, in his late teens he discovered jazz and the great American song writers.

He launched his professional career as a pianist and vocalist, receiving his first big break when, in 1953, an agent landed him a single recording deal to sing Catch a Falling Star, produced by Beatles producer and Guildhall School alumnus Sir George Martin. From there, Lubbock performed around the world, and his flair for arranging gained him freelance work for the BBC and ITV.

Impressed by Lubbock’s versatility and talent, noted composer and arranger Don Specht invited him to move to Los Angeles where there were further opportunities to utilise his gifts: he and his family moved there in 1977. The move to America proved to be auspicious. Specht introduced him to Joni Mitchell’s then producer Henry Lewy, who invited the newcomer to work on Mitchell’s 1979 Mingus album and to arrange Minnie Riperton’s final album Minnie. His fresh approach to these projects caught the attention of producers Quincy Jones and David Foster, who enlisted his help on a number of prestigious releases. These included, for Foster, Chicago 16, 17, and 18, and for Jones the ET album, narrated by Michael Jackson.

1994 was exceptional for Lubbock, in that he received three Grammy nominations out of a possible five in his category: for Barbra Streisand’s Luck Be a Lady Tonight, Whitney Houston’s I Have Nothing and When I Fall In Love from Sleepless in Seattle, which won him his third Grammy. His first two were in 1984 for his arrangement for Chicago’s Hard Habit to Break and for the Olympic Gymnastics Theme Grace.

Genre-fluid, multi-disciplinary and progressive, Guildhall Studio Orchestra launched in 2017 and places students next to the highest level of professional musicians in a side-by-side setup, with commissioned repertoire from some of the best arrangers working today.

Tickets

£15 (£5 concessions), available from Barbican Box Office.