ANDY PASK BIOGRAPHY

Bassist Andy Pask has had an extraordinary career, playing, recording and creating music with hardly a break since he left school. At ten he was a chorister in the highly exacting choir of New College, Oxford. This led to a music scholarship to Haileybury College under music director Jack Hindmarsh and Eddie Harvey, who helped introduce Andy to jazz and commercial music. During three years at the Royal Academy of Music (studying cello under Douglas Cameron and Lilly Phillips and double bass with John Walton), Andy immersed himself in the London scene. This included work with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra and gigs with Landscape; he is still working with many of the same musicians 45 years later.

With drummer Charlie Morgan, Andy composed the theme to The Bill, a popular UK police TV series that ran for 2425 episodes. Andy’s album credits include Mary Hopkin, Freddie Mercury, Sharleen Spiteri, Jimmy Somerville, Madonna, The Pet Shop Boys, Swans Way, Talk Talk, The Mood, Five Star, Gloria Gaynor, China Crisis, Tom Jones, Bananarama, Dusty Springfield, Tina Turner, Debbie Harry, Henry Mancini, Olivia Newton-John, Steve Marriott, Laura Mvula, Katherine Jenkins, The New London Chorale, Mary J. Blige and Billie Eilish.

Andy has also worked on countless albums for the Spanish and South American markets and as a rhythm section player for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC Concert Orchestra and most of the other UK orchestras.

His extensive feature film work includes The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, three Twilight films, Last Orders, Spy Kids, The Guru, Calendar Girls, Gosford Park, Aberdeen, Hugo, Hotel Transylvania, The Hobbit, The Full Monty, Maleficent, The Hunger Games, Spectre, Dunkirk, Widows, Wonder Woman and No Time to Die.

He has worked on film and concert projects in Poland with Zbigniew Preisner. Other composers he has worked with include: Alan Silvestri, Maurice Jarre, James Newton Howard, Michael Giacchino, Howard Shore, Danny Elfman, Nicholas Britell, Randy Edelman and David Arnold. Andy was the resident bass player in Harry Stoneham’s band on the chat show Wogan (700 editions) and worked on many drama and light entertainment TV programmes. His extensive theatre work has included Evita, Ghost, Hair and Bend It Like Beckham.

Live work has always been central to Andy’s life, since Landscape’s busy schedule in the late 1970s he has played live with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Véronique Sanson, Elaine Paige and many more artists whose shows and tours have taken him around the world. From 2016 to the present day, Andy has been a member of Hans Zimmer’s touring band, travelling to Australasia, the Far East, throughout Europe and the US, including two nights at Radio City Music Hall and playing with 60 musicians in the Mojave desert at Coachella in 2017.

Read: ‘INFLUENCES – ANDY PASK’