Craig Pruess is an American musician, arranger, record producer, conductor, multi-instrumentalist, sound engineer/sound designer and film composer living in the UK since 1973. His feature film music credits include: "Bend It Like Beckham", "Bride & Prejudice", "What's Cooking?", "The Mistress of Spices", among others. Also known as a specialist world music arranger (Massive Attack, Def Leppard, Bond), conductor, gold and platinum record producer (Sir Cliff Richard, Sheila Walsh - who's first album produced and arranged by Craig was nominated for a GRAMMY Award), singer (Sacred Chants of Buddha), and now featured member of the popular African fusion group, the GANDA BOYS, which earned Craig a British Academy Award nomination for Best Original Music Score in 2010.
His famous Sacred Chants series of CDs are sold worldwide, with millions of sales in particular in India and Nepal. He has performed sitar for the Dalai Lama in London, and for Prince Charles at a private concert in his home at Highgrove, West of England. Craig contributed sitar and Indian sound textures to the Johnny Depp film "Charlie & the Chocolate Factory", the Madonna film, "The Next Best Thing", the Heather Graham film, "The Guru", "Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire", the Warners Bros film, "A Little Princess", and the Greta Scacchi film, "Shoot on Sight". He has scored Gurinder Chadha's latest feature film, "It's a Wonderful Afterlife".
Craig is one of the few session musicians in London that has consistent mastery in three of the great musical traditions of the world: Western classical and contemporary (all genres), Indian classical, fusion and devotional, and lastly African music (two years as a full time member of the teaching staff at the East African Conservatoire of Music in Nairobi, Kenya, and performing musician in East Africa - now currently founder member of theUgandan/fusion group, the Ganda Boys, in the UK). His career has been varied and diverse, but influenced by many years of his personal meditation and yoga practice; since 1995, he has been an Art of Living teacher for Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's THE ART OF LIVING FOUNDATION. In 2004 he brought these effective stress relief and rehabilitation programmes into high security UK prisons.
His many years of penetrating exploration into consciousness and sound gives his recorded work an unusual depth and breadth. He is founder (1977) and director of Heaven on Earth Music.
The Sacred Chants series started with Craig's unique vision to return to the ancient verses and chants of various cultures and spiritual traditions and re-enliven and re-interpret them with new recorded renditions and arrangements - principally, to help make them vehicles for deep meditation, relaxation and contemplation. The Series created a a tremendous impact all over India in 1998 with the release of "Sacred Chants of Shiva" and then the word spread internationally, to where now, in 2012, Sacred Chants CDs are sold in over 85 countries and are featured in soundtracks and videos worldwide, also being used by inspiration leaders of the human development movement.
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