BAFTA winning composer to give concert (From Harrow Times)

Poirot composer to give charity concert in Ealing

7:20am Tuesday 11th November 2008 in Search By Alex Hayes

A BAFTA winning composer is set to give a rare performance of some of his works in aid of a charity close to his heart.

Ealing resident Christopher Gunning, who won awards for the music on TV's Poirot, Middlemarch and Porterhouse Blue, is performing with several other musicians at St Mary's Church in Ealing.

The concert is to raise funds for the Cardiomyopathy Association, a problem Christopher himself was diagnosed with four years ago.

He said: “I had been exhibiting symptoms for at least a year before I was finally diagnosed woth it.

“Basically what happens is the heart cannot pump as much blood as it normally would do, which leads to things like shortness of breath, and even the enlarging of the heart.

“I had a device fitted which sends an electrical pulse down to my heart to make the two halves beat in time, and since then I have been much better.

“When I first found out about it I decided to look it up online, and came across the Cardiomyopathy Association website, and spent all night looking there at the information.

“I decided to do this concert to try and help raise awareness and money for them, as the work they do supporting the families of people with this condition is amazing.”

The 64-year-old grew up in a crowded family home in Hendon, but said he knew from an early age he wanted to be a musician.

Both of his parents were involved in the industry, and fostered his love of all kinds of music by taking him to performances. It was at a performance of Handel's Messiah his mother took him to at the Royal Albert Hall, when he was seven.

He said: “At this performance they had a massive choir and orchestra, which I later learnt was not at all how it was intended to be performed, but I went home and said to my dad I wanted to be a composer.

“I didn't really get into 20th Century music until I was in my early teens, and I would go down to the record library which was near where we lived and take out records.

“It was great because it was all free, except when I managed to warp them by leaving them in the sun too long, then I had to pay for them.”

Although he always wanted to write concertos and classical music, Christopher fell into writing music for commercials after a chance meeting with an advertising executive on Brighton Pier.

He explained: “I was writing arrangements and playing piano for someone who performed on the end of the pier.

“After one of the shows a guy came up to me and asked if O wanted to write the music for a TV commercial. It was a fabulously well paid job for a musician, and I just fell into it from there.

“Perhaps the best known of my pieces was from the Martini advert, which ran across the world for 30 years.”

From there he started to write music for the Hammer House of Horror feature films, before more regular work writing for some very famous and well-loved TV shows and films.

Christopher said: “It was never my intention to do that much of it, I always wanted to make a bit of money to support myself while I produced my master piece.

“However in the last few years I have been writing some classical stuff which I will be performing at the concert.

“It's quite nerve-wracking as I hardly ever play in public, so this is an incredibly are thing for me.”

The concert is being held at St Mary's Church, St Mary's Road, Ealing, on Saturday, November 29, at 7.30pm.

Tickets are £10 for adults, and are available by calling 01494 791224 or emailing info@cardiomyopathy.org.