Andrew Cruickshank

Composer and Musician

Joyce McMillan of the Scotsman wrote of The Gates in October 2013:

Glasgow " audiences are in for a treat when Andrew Cruickshank and Rachel Jury's vivid new musical reaches the city's Classic Grand on Wednesday.......The Gates is the backdrop for Cruickshank's astonishing score, which features almost 20 new songs, many of them with a gorgeous, doomed, jazz-blues intonation that perfectly fits the theme"

" I can think of several world-beating musicals that have started life with less, and gone on to global success"

 

 

Mark Fisher reviewing “By The Seat Of Your Pants” in Theatre Scotland – March 2011

 

“Particularly strong is the score for clarinet, double bass and piano, specially recorded by composer Andrew Cruickshank. This is not just incidental music, but an integral part of the show, inspiring many of the visual gags, establishing the comedic pace and setting the tone of easy-going humour with its cool jazz rhythms and occasional classical digressions. The show would not be the same without it”

BIOGRAPHY

Andrew grew up in Glasgow and studied in London at the Royal Academy of Music where he twice won a jazz scholarship along with the Eugene Cruft prize for Double Bass. He went on to take a postgraduate course at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in Performance and Communication Skills where he developed his composition, improvisation, and theatre skills.

He worked for several years as a professional double bass player in London, working with major orchestras such as the Philharmonia, the London Sinfonietta, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Glyndebourne Opera amongst others. Since moving back to Scotland, he has performed with all the national companies including touring with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra as guest principal double bass.

He has led numerous education projects for a wide range of organisations such as the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Scottish Ensemble, West Lothian and Glasgow City Councils along with other local authorities.

He has worked as Musical Director for his own productions with Confab as well as for the annual Gleneagles Show from 2008 -16. He also conducts and arranges music for a young string group The Hyndland Ensemble, who regularly perform in the Glasgow Music Festival. He is a jury member at the International Festival of Music for Young People (EMJ) in Belgium. At the 2015 festival he led a massed improvisation session with over 50 young musicians from the Czech Republic.

In 2014 he was commissioned to compose a work to mark the 200th anniversary of Gartnaval Royal Hospital. This institution cares for Glasgow’s psychiatric patients and Andrew involved many of the service-users in the creative process as well as in the performance that also included professional musicians from Common Wheel. This has been followed by three more big commissions - now an annual event.

He plays and teaches double bass, bass guitar and guitar while playing various other instruments including piano, flute and percussion.

Andrew is in regular demand as a composer and is always open to new commissioning possibilities.