Anne Jennifer Beckingham, better known as Anne Dudley, is an English composer and pop musician. Dudley was the first BBC Concert Orchestra's Composer in Association in 2001. She has worked in both the classical and pop genres. She is perhaps best known, however, as one of the core members of the synthpop band Art of Noise and also as a film composer. In 1998, she won an Academy Award for Best Original Musical or Comedy Score for The Full Monty. In addition to over twenty other film scores, in 2012 she also served as music producer for the film version of Les Misérables, also acting as arranger and composing some new additional music.
Trained as a classical performer, Dudley then moved to the competitive commercial field as a session musician, where her professional relationship with Trevor Horn began. In 1982 Dudley made significant contributions to the Horn-produced The Lexicon of Love album by ABC. She went from fleshing-out keyboard parts to scoring the album's orchestrations (her first ever string arrangements according to Horn and also co-writing some of the songs. Her association with Horn, led on to working with musical artists such as Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Seal, Marc Almond, Rod Stewart, Robbie Williams and more recently with Siphiwo. She has co-written songs with Malcolm McLaren "Buffalo Gals", Cathy Dennis "Too Many Walls", and a 1930's-inspired song with Sting called "This Was Never Meant To Be".
As a producer, Dudley produced Tom Jones hit "You Can Leave Your Hat On" (1988) and a Debbie Harry single "Strike Me Pink" (1993). Dudley produced two tracks on the 2002 Opera Babes album "Beyond Imagination" (ranking No.1 on the UK classical charts for 11 weeks, and No.4 on the U.S. billboard charts). In 2004 she produced the album Voice for Alison Moyet. The album, an eclectic collection of covers, reached No.7 in the UK charts.
Dudley was a founding member of the successful band Art of Noise, which helped pioneer the use of sampling within the pop genre. Stand-out hits include Beat Box (1984), Moments in Love (1985) and Kiss with Tom Jones (1988).
Dudley's work for orchestra includes "Northern Lights", a 14-minute reflection of Norway's Aurora Borealis for full orchestra, performed in 2005 and 2006 at the Royal Festival Hall and broadcast on BBC Radio 3's Late Junction programme in May 2005. Her first commission as Composer in Association with the BBC Concert Orchestra was "Music and Silence", music inspired by the novel of the same name by Rose Tremain, first performed at The Royal Festival Hall in 2002. Dudley arranged Bach's Chaconne from Partita in D minor for Piano trio and a recording by the Eroica Trio appears on their "Baroque" album. Her album "Ancient and Modern" was released in 1999 and is a modern take on some traditional hymns and Bach chorales. Dudley was the musical director for "Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra" first performed in Brighton and at The Royal Albert Hall in 2008 which was recorded and available as a DVD. (released December 2009) The show was toured in 2009 with 8 different regional orchestras joining the banter - the gags are surreal - the orchestra play the Nokia theme tune and a French Horn concerto turns into the theme from Coronation Street.
Dudley collaborated with Sam Taylor-Wood in producing the sound and video installation "Sigh" at the White Cube in 2008. The work featured the BBC Concert Orchestra on eight large projected screens miming to Dudley's score.
Dudley's career in film music has spanned 20 years and her film scores include: American History X (1998) an American drama directed by Tony Kaye, starring Edward Norton and Edward Furlong; A Man Apart (2003) starring Vin Diesel; Black Book (2006) a World War II film directed by Paul Verhoeven; Bright Young Things (2003) British drama written and directed by Stephen Fry based on the novel Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh; Buster (1988) a British comedy drama starring musician Phil Collins, Julie Walters, Larry Lamb and Sheila Hancock; The Crying Game (1992) an Irish/British drama film written and directed by Neil Jordan; The Full Monty (1997) a Peter Cattaneo directed comedy about six unemployed steel workers who decide to form a male striptease act. Dudley won the "Best Original Musical or Comedy Score" Oscar for her music; The Gathering (2002) an Anthony Horowitz thriller directed by Brian Gilbert and starring Christina Ricci; The Grotesque (1997) released in the US as Gentlemen Don't Eat Poets a British film starring Alan Bates, Theresa Russell and Sting; Hollow Reed (1996) a drama directed by Angela Pope and set in Bath; Knight Moves (1992) American thriller directed by Carl Schenkel and starring Christopher Lambert; Lucky Break' (2001) a British feelgood comedy starring James Nesbitt and based around a prison escape; The Miracle Maker (2000) an animated feature film made for TV by BBC Wales with Russian model makers; Les Misérables (2012) (music producer / arranger / additional music composer) blockbuster version of the celebrated long-running musical; Monkeybone (2001) an American film combining live-action and stop-motion animation starring Brendan Fraser and Bridget Fonda; Perfect Creature (2007) a New Zealand made horror/thriller film starring Leo Gregory; Pushing Tin (1999), directed by Mike Newell and starring John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton, a comedy-drama film based around air traffic controllers in New York; The Pope Must Die (1991) a comedy film starring Robbie Coltrane the score was co-written with Jeff Beck; Silence Like Glass (Zwei Frauen) (1989) German made but set in a cancer ward at a hospital in America; Tristan & Isolde (2006) a Ridley Scott romantic drama based on the medieval romantic legend of Tristan and Iseult and starring James Franco and Sophia Myles; The Walker (2007) a drama written and directed by Paul Schrader set in Washington, D. C.; Her TV music includes scores for all episodes of Jeeves and Wooster with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie; Lynda La Plante's Above Suspicion; Kavanagh QC with John Thaw and The Tenth Kingdom an American epic fantasy TV miniseries written by Simon Moore.
Dudley has worked as a session musician for many artists and her string and orchestral arrangements crop up on a diverse array of albums. These include: Oleta Adams "Circle of One" album (reaching No.1 in the UK charts 1991); Marc Almond "Tenement Symphony" album which included the epic tracks "Jacky" and "The Days of Pearly Spencer"; The Associates "Wild and Lonely" album; Rick Astley "Free" album; B*Witched "Awake and Breathe" album; Chris Botti "Slowing Down the World" album; Boyzone "A Different Beat" album; Cher "It's a Man's World" album; Petula Clark "La Vie en Rose" track; Lloyd Cole and the Commotions "Rattlesnakes" album; Andrea Corr "Ten Feet High" album; Cathy Dennis "Move to This" and "Into the Skyline" albums; Electronic "Getting Away with It" single (reaching No.12 in the UK charts 1990); Frankie Goes to Hollywood "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" album which included their 2nd and 3rd No.1s "Two Tribes" and "The Power of Love"; Elton John "The Big Picture" album; Martyn Joseph "Being There" album; Kingmaker "Sleepwalking" album; Annie Lennox "Medusa" album (No.1 in the UK charts 1995); Let Loose "Best In Me" single; Virginia MacNaughton "The Music" album; Paul McCartney "Press to Play" album; Malcolm McLaren "Duck Rock" album; The Men They Couldn't Hang "A Map Of Morocco" single; George Michael "Careless Whisper" single (reaching No.1 in 25 countries); Liza Minnelli "Results" album (reaching No.6 in the UK charts 1989); The Moody Blues "Greatest Hits" album; Moist "Gasoline" single; Jimmy Nail "Crocodile Shoes" album (reaching No.2 in the UK charts 1994); The Painted Word "Lovelife" album; Pet Shop Boys "Very" album; Pulp "Different Class" and "This Is Hardcore" albums (both reaching No.1); Rialto "Monday Morning 5:19" single; Frances Ruffelle "Stranger To The Rain" single; S Club "7 album" (No.1 in the UK charts 2000); Scarlet "Naked" album; Seal first 3 albums "Seal" "Seal II" "Human Being"; Siphiwo "Hope" album (featuring Nelson Mandela on the title track); Wendy Stark "Stark" album; Rod Stewart "A Spanner in the Works" album and "If We Fall in Love Tonight" album and the single "Downtown Train"; Suggs "The Lone Ranger" album; Travis "More Than Us" EP featuring Anne on the title track; Tina Turner "Wildest Dreams" album; Wet Wet Wet "Holding Back the River" album (reaching No.2 in the UK charts 1989); Wham! "Everything She Wants" single and "Young Guns (Go for It)" their first hit single; Robbie Williams "Reality Killed the Video Star" album; Will Young "Friday's Child" album (reaching No.1 in the UK charts 2004) and Leave Right Now single (reaching No.1 in the UK charts 2003).
In 2012, Dudley worked as a pianist, orchestrator, producer, and composer of additional music on the film adaptation of the musical Les Misérables.
In addition to Dudley's Academy Award for "The Full Monty", she won a "Brit Award" for Best Soundtrack (1998). Previously she was awarded a "Brit" for "Buster" Best British Soundtrack 1989. She won a "Grammy Award" for Best Rock Instrumental Performance in 1986 for "Peter Gunn". She has three "Ivor Novello" nominations: "Crime Traveller" Best Original Music for Broadcast 1997; "The Key" Best Original Music for Television 2003 and "Trial and Retribution" Best Television Soundtrack 2008. She was made a Fellow of The Royal College of Music in 2004. In July 2011 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Kent.