Craig Leon

Craig Leon is a composer, arranger,and record producer based in the UK. He has arranged,orchestrated and produced best-selling albums for leading labels including Deutsche Grammophon, Decca and Sony Classical.The album that he produced and arranged for Joshua Bell "Romance of the Violin "(Sony) was US Billboard’s No.1 bestseller in the Classical Artist category for the year 2004 and entered the U.S. pop charts .The recent "Wings of Song" album for James Galway and The London Symphony Orchestra (DG) reached No.1 in the UK and No.2 in the US classical charts . Craig has collaborated on albums with leading vocalists including Luciano Pavarotti, Andreas Scholl, Sting, Deborah Harry and members of the medieval ensemble Sequentia . Skills as an arranger and orchestrator have embraced music by Charles Tomlinson Griffes(recorded for ASV with the London Symphony Orchestra), and early French, American and British folk music .
Craig has recently completed the original soundtrack for the one hour television broadcast "Orbit: Journey to the Moon" which documents the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969. The show is a collage of images of the flight with a full one hour soundtrack of original music by Craig. "Journey to the Moon" was beamed to 48 countries around the world on 20 July, 2009. He also has written and performed on three albums under his own name, including “Nommos” (a dance piece based on North African ethnic themes and electronic music, that was used by members of The Twyla Tharp dance troupe which was also used as the opening exhibit for the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art in 1981),and the full length score of the Kosh Dance Theatre piece, ”Klub Anima”, which deals with alternating classical and modern electronic forms.
Craig has written and produced three number one classical albums with new age/classical artist Izzy,as well as the U.K. chart topping debut album for EMI Classics soprano Natasha Marsh,recorded with the LondonSymphony Orchestra and the top 5 French classical album "Dreams" for Harmonia Mundi Recording artist cellist Ophélie Gaillard,recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He has also co written and produced 6 folk-electronic albums for Texas folk artist Cassell Webb.



Craig grew up in Florida, where he received private classical music training in keyboard performance, composition, and musicology. While working in local bands and on local rock and R&B records as a keyboard player and arranger he recorded in various studios including Criteria in Miami. He eventually built his own recording studio with the help of his friend, Alex Sadkin, another Floridian who also worked at Criteria at that time. After producer, Richard Gottehrer brought in Sire recording artists, The Climax Blues Band, in to record at the studio he offered Craig an appointment in New York as his assistant.
As a result, Leon moved to Manhattan in the early 1970s where he accepted an A&R position at Sire Records in New York under Gottehrer and his partner Seymour Stein. There he was responsible for the discovery and early development of the Ramones and Talking Heads amongst other artists. He produced the first Ramones album and also concentrated on licensing more adventurous European records which the majors were unwilling to release in the U.S. At Sire, Craig learned the skills necessary for the production, as well as manufacture of recorded music.
After producing the ‘Live at CBGBs’ compilation for Atlantic Records, Craig joined Richard Gottehrer and Marty Thau to set up a production company called Instant Records. Projects included the early Blondie records, Richard Hell & The Voidoids and Suicide.
Other productions throughout the 70s included Chilliwack, Willie Alexander and the Boom Boom Band, Martha Velez & The Wailers (co-produced with Bob Marley and Lee Perry), Robert Gordon& Link Wray, Moon Martin (including ‘Bad Case of Loving You’ and ‘Cadillac Walk’), Rodney Crowell, Guy Clark, The Roches(with Robert Fripp), Dwight Twilley, Sir Douglas Quintet, The Records and others. In the early 80s came The Fabulous Thunderbirds,The Bangles,The Beat Farmers,etc.
In the mid 80s Craig relocated to the U.K. at the request of Statik Records (an independent subsidiary of Virgin) where he produced Jeffrey Lee Pierce, Flesh For Lulu and others including mixing for The Chameleons and The Sound. Since that time he has been active in both the major and alternative music scenes in the UK with over 40 chart records including Doctor and The Medics, The Pogues, The Go Betweens, The Primitives, Adult Net, etc.
Craig also produced the Blondie comeback album ,No Exit,(1999) and has worked on the album, Curse of Blondie (2003), Mark Owen(of Take That), Jean Luc de Meyer, Front242,The Chills, as well as The Fall, Jesus Jones,New Fads, Eugenius and Shonen Knife. It is interesting to note that in 1999 Craig became the only producer in UK chart history to have produced a number 1 pop single (Blondie-Maria) and a completely different number 1 classical album (Izzy-Libera Me-Decca) in the same year.
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