Craig Pruess

Craig Pruess is an American composer, musician, arranger and record producer who has lived in Britain since 1973. He is a versatile film and TV composer and a world music multi-instrumentalist, playing sitar, harmonium, trumpet, keyboards and percussion. He lives in Stroud, Gloucestershire, where he works from a home recording studio. He describes his music as composed and envisioned "in the sacred temple between my speakers, between my ears" (Craig Pruess, YouTube channel description).

His screen work includes the scores for Gurinder Chadha's Bend It Like Beckham, Bride & Prejudice, Bhaji on the Beach, What's Cooking? and It's A Wonderful Afterlife, as well as The Mistress of Spices and the BBC series Five Days II. His music for the BBC drama Moses Jones brought a British Academy Award nomination and a Royal Television Society Award nomination. He also played sitar on soundtracks including Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, and arranged for artists including Massive Attack and Cliff Richard. He played keyboards live with Mike Oldfield.

Alongside this, Craig has more than 14 best-selling world music and chant records to his name. His Sacred Chants series draws on many years of yoga and meditation, and it includes Sacred Chants of Shiva, a project involving Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. According to his Wikipedia article, yoga and spiritual teachers around the world use his recordings in sessions, videos and workshops. His label, Heaven on Earth Music, was founded in 1977. He has performed in concerts from Glastonbury Festival and WOMAD to Highgrove for HRH The Prince of Wales.

He is also the producer and a core performing member of the Afro fusion band Ganda Boys, and he formed the world fusion ambient band At-Ma. According to Wikipedia, he is an active Art of Living teacher, and he founded the Ganda Foundation, a UK charity that has supported hospitals and schools in Uganda.