Anne Dudley's guest work on PSB recordings
British musician, composer, arranger, and conductor Anne Dudley has an illustrious résumé. Famed in both the classical and pop fields, she has written scores for more than two dozen films and television programs, including The Crying Game, Jeeves and Wooster, Monkeybone, American History X, Buster, and The Full Monty—this last for which she received an Academy Award for "Best Original Musical or Comedy Score." In the world of pop, she is perhaps best known for being, with Trevor Horn, a key member (as keyboardist) for the seminal synthpop ensemble Art of Noise. Since then she has often worked with Horn as one of his "standard" support musicians, though in recent years her busy schedule has prevented her from doing so quite as regularly as before.
Dudley first colloborated with the Boys during the recording of the album they produced for Liza Minnelli, Results. Since then she has worked with them on a number of occasions, particularly when they've needed someone to arrange and conduct orchestral segments. Here's a list of Dudley's guest appearances on PSB (or PSB-produced) recordings, each song followed by her musical role:
- On Liza Minnelli's 1989 PSB-produced album Results:
- "I Want You Now" - conductor, orchestral arrangement
- "Rent" - conductor
- "Tonight Is Forever" - conductor, orchestral arrangement
- On the 1993 album Very:
- "Liberation" - conductor, orchestral arrangement
- "Dreaming of the Queen" - piano, conductor, orchestral arrangement
- "The Theatre" - conductor, orchestral arrangement
- On the 1993 album Relentless:
- "One Thing Leads to Another" - conductor, orchestral arrangement
- On the 2003 album PopArt:
- "Miracles" - conductor, orchestral arrangement
- On the 2006 album Fundamental:
- "The Sodom and Gomorrah Show" - conductor, brass and orchestral arrangement
- "Indefinite Leave to Remain" - conductor, brass and orchestral arrangement
- On the 2006 live album Concrete:
- Most if not all tracks - keyboards
- "The Sodom and Gomorrah Show" - orchestral arrangement
- "Dreaming of the Queen" - orchestral arrangement
- "West End Girls" - instrumental (but, in this case, not orchestral) arrangement
In addition, she provided the orchestral arrangement and conducted the orchestra for Neil's collaboration with Electronic on "Getting Away with It."
Dudley also played support keyboards on the two songs ("Left to My Own Devices" and "It's Alright") that the Pet Shop Boys performed at the famous 2005 Prince's Trust Trevor Horn tribute concert. Although she scored the film 1993 film The Crying Game, for which the Boys produced several tracks (including, most famously, Boy George's rendition of the title song), in that case she didn't take an active role on "their" tracks, and vice-versa. Further, she (in Neil's own words) "recreated" the Angelo Badalamenti orchestral arrangement of "Rent" and played piano for Jake Shears's live rendition of the song, duetting with special guest Neil, on the February 23, 2023 edition of BBC Radio Two's Piano Room. Exactly one year later, on February 23, 2024, she conducted the BBC Concert Orchestra backing the Boys on their Piano Room performances of "Left to My Own Devices," "Loneliness," and "All the Young Dudes."
It's also interesting to note (though this is by no means a "collaboration" or instance of "guest work") that Dudley composed the music for Stephen Fry's 2003 film Bright Young Things, for which the Pet Shop Boys composed their song of the same name—but which, as it turned out, wasn't used for the film after all.
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