Biography
Born into a musical family in Blackburn, Lancashire, Gray was encouraged to pursue a musical career from an early age. Starting at the age of five - with piano lessons - he studied diligently and became a student at the Manchester Royal College of Music and at Blackburn Cathedral. He studied composition under the Hungarian teacher Matyas Seiber. Gray's first professional job was for B. Feldman & Co. in London, where he gained experience in scoring for theatre and variety orchestras. From there, he joined Radio Normandy as a composer-arranger. After serving for six years with the Royal Air Force during World War II he returned to the music industry to work with such names as Vera Lynn and Hoagy Carmichael.
In 1956 Gray joined Gerry Anderson's AP Films and scored its first marionette puppet television series, The Adventures of Twizzle. This was followed by Torchy The Battery Boy and Four Feather Falls, a puppet Western based on a concept suggested by Gray. His association with Anderson lasted throughout the 1960s. Although best known for his score to Thunderbirds (in particular the "March of the Thunderbirds" title music), Gray's work also included the themes to all the other "Supermarionation" productions, including Fireball XL5, Stingray, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Joe 90. Recording sessions were held at Olympic Studios, Pye Studios and CTS Studios in London, Anvil Studios in Denham, Buckinghamshire and Gray's own studios at his residence in Esher, Surrey.
Additionally, Gray is known as the composer for the Anderson live-action series of the 1970s, such as UFO and Space: 1999. His work in cinema included the scores to the Thunderbirds feature films Thunderbirds Are Go (1966) and Thunderbird 6 (1968), and the live-action science-fiction drama Doppelgänger (1969). Gray's professional association with Anderson and his career in TV and film scoring ended when he decided to leave the production of Space: 1999 after the completion of the first series. His replacement for the second series was Derek Wadsworth, who composed new title music.
In 1970, Gray moved from Esher to St Peter Port, Guernsey. Later, after his retirement, he served as resident pianist at the Old Government House Hotel. He died in hospital on Guernsey on 26 April 1984. He had a son, Simon.
Read more about this topic: Barry Gray
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