Anne Dudley
As a session player, arranger and founder member of synth pop group The Art of Noise in the 1980s and an Oscar-winning film composer for The Full Monty, Anne Dudley has enjoyed a career of both variety and success. Her new album Crossing the Bar pairs original pieces for piano and strings with folk song arrangements.
I had some great teachers. I remember Miss Felix very fondly from my primary school days. She discovered I had perfect pitch and got very excited. There were some wonderful female role models, too. Elisabeth Lutyens was one of the first women to ever score a film – she worked on the Hammer Horror movies. I remember finding out about her and thinking, ‘Oh, so women can write music.’
Writing music for commercials was instrumental for me becoming a composer. It was a fantastic discipline in terms of telling a story and being able to understand how music and film can work together.
I let my hands inspire me. I play the piano and start finding some notes; you’ve got quite a lot of choice on a great big grand piano. Then I find chords which I like, and one thing leads to another. I’m not afraid to do something quite simple. That’s what I learned many years ago when I was playing keyboard sessions on pop tracks.
Crossing the Bar is based on a poem by Tennyson. He uses the imagery of crossing from a harbour over a sandbar into the open sea to describe a very peaceful journey from life to death. It’s really lovely and I just thought, ‘How would you express that gentle rocking motion of a boat on the water?’
It was liberating to write music that wasn’t dictated by something having to be a certain length or hit certain points. It was daunting at the same time, though, because the blank page can be terrifying. If somebody says to me ‘write anything you like’, that’s awful. There are too many possibilities and too many choices.
I would love to write a musical. I am a bit of a musicals buff and I like the buzz of working in the theatre; there’s a great energy to it. I am a million miles away from writing a musical, though, because I have no ideas and nobody has come to me and said, ‘I want to write a musical with you.’ But I’ll just put it out there!