ANDREW POWELL
Arranger, Conductor, Composer, Musician, Producer

As a key member of THE PROJECT, Andrew was the only arranger and conductor that the British record franchise The Alan Parsons Project ever had. Classically trained, he studied music at King’s College, Cambridge, where he was awarded a Master’s Degree in Music. The Alan Parsons Project were to become one of the most important recording production team forces in the Progressive Rock recording industry in the 1970s and 80s, with worldwide album sales in excess of 50 million coming from a string of platinum and gold albums. Andrew arranged and conducted the orchestra and/or choir on all 9 Alan Parsons Project albums that had orchestration from the 1976 debut album, Tales of Mystery and Imagination, to the band’s final album Gaudi, released in 1987.  Andrew also made important contributions to the franchise as co-composer and musician, including playing piano and Hammond organ. His highly contemporary large orchestral and choral sound combined with the rock rhythm section (the London Times commented: “At last a rock arranger who knows that music has developed since Tchaikovsky”) was a “fingerprint” of the recording franchise. This is partly because he had worked with such eminent composers as Boulez, Berio and Stockhausen, as well as in the rock world.

 

One of his first commissions as a rock arranger/conductor was the debut album of Cockney Rebel, including the songs Sebastian and Death Trip - where he first met drummer Stuart Elliott who would become the permanent APP drummer with the Pyramid album released in 1978.  Andrew went on to arrange Cockney Rebel's next two albums including Psychomodo which was co-produced by Alan Parsons.  Andrew also arranged albums for Leo Sayer (One Man Band, Giving It All Away) Donovan, John Miles (Music, Rebel,) Cliff Richard (Miss You Nights,) Pilot (Magic, January,) Al Stewart (Modern Times, The Year of the Cat, Time Passages, Russians & Americans, Between The Wars,) Ambrosia, Humble Pie, Mick Fleetwood, David Gilmour, Chris Rea, Nick Heyward, Vitamin Z, Peter Hoffman, Münchener Freiheit, The Hollies, Sammy Hagar, Classic Rock, Wouter van Belle, Laïs, Il Divo, Eva Jacobs, Racoon, Adamo, Geike and others.

 

His career as a record producer took off when he was asked by David Gilmour of Pink Floyd (whose office had discovered her) to produce Kate Bush’s first album The Kick Inside. The first single Wuthering Heights went straight to No. 1 in the U.K., and achieved platinum status all around Europe, South America and Australasia, as did the album. He produced her follow-up album Lionheart, which was also successful. He went on to produce records for artists as diverse as Chris de Burgh and Kansas, Elaine Paige and Judy Collins, Tim Rice and André Heller, John Miles and Berdien Stenberg & The Philharmonia Orchestra amongst others.

 

Andrew has co-written songs with Al Stewart, Alan Parsons, David Pack, Stuart Elliott, Menna Elfyn and Tim Rice. He wrote the scores for Ladyhawke (Michelle Pfeiffer, Matthew Broderick, Rutger Hauer, dir. Richard Donner ) which won an honours nomination for best score from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, Rocket Gibraltar (Burt Lancaster, Macauley Culkin, dir. Dan Petrie,) Closed Circuit (Film 4,) and has contributed music to other films, such as Janice (Joseph Strick,) The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (Richard Dreyfuss, dir. Ted Kotcheff,) Caravan to Vaccares, Ice Dance and Bolden, as well as to many T.V. programmes and series both in the U.K. and in Germany, France, Scandinavia and America.

 

Andrew also works in the Classical world - His work Points Upon a Canvas for large orchestra, originally performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, was selected as one of the Welsh submissions to the 2019 International Society for Contemporary Music festival. Additionally, he has conducted orchestras and ensembles all over the world, including the Philharmonia Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the LPO, the LCO, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Wellington Symphony Orchestra, the Bayerische Rundfunk Orchestra, the Münchener Kammeroper, the Wallace Collection, the Black Dyke Mills Band and the Grimethorpe Colliery Band.

 

2021 through 2022 brings the long awaited reunion of THE PROJECT for their first tour EVER. The tour will be three years and will commence during early 2021 in Europe. The reunion of Lenny Zakatek on lead vocals, Andrew Powell on keyboards and conducting, Laurence Cottle on bass, Stuart Elliott on drums, Richard Cottle on keyboards and saxophone and featuring guests Dave Bainbridge and Sam Blue on guitars and vocals will prove to be the rock music's main event of each year.

 

 

OriginalProjectOnline.com is the Business Website of THE PROJECT

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THE PROJECT features former Recording Artists of The Alan Parsons Project, but is not affiliated or associated with or endorsed by Alan Parsons or Alan Parsons Live Project.

 

OriginalProjectOnline.com is the Business Website of The Project Band Limited

COPYRIGHT 2021

 

THE PROJECT features former Recording Artists of The Alan Parsons Project, but is not affiliated or associated with or endorsed by Alan Parsons or
Alan Parsons Live Project.”

OriginalProjectOnline.com is the Business Website of
The Project Band Limited

COPYRIGHT 2021

 

THE PROJECT features former Recording Artists of The Alan Parsons Project, but is not affiliated or associated with or endorsed by
 Alan Parsons or Alan Parsons Live Project.”