John Du Prez - Career

Career

Du Prez has often worked with Eric Idle for the music for Monty Python, most notably the score for Monty Python's The Meaning of Life as well as A Fish Called Wanda. He acted as music arranger on the Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones films Monty Python's The Life of Brian (1979) and Time Bandits (1981), the latter starring Sean Connery, and he also co-wrote the music for the stage musical Spamalot, as well as the music and the intro theme of the British series Captain Star. In 1986 Du Prez contributed songs to the soundtrack of the Madonna (entertainer) and Sean Penn movie Shanghai Surprise: Hottest gong in town and Zig-Zag.

The adoption of the name John Du Prez was to avoid confusion with the South African film composer Trevor Jones. He is probably best known as the trumpet and Horn (instrument) player in the 1980s Pop group Modern Romance, who had a string of Top 40 hits from 1981–83, and made many guest appearances on TV shows such as the BBC programme Top of the Pops.

John Du Prez has also scored various films including the Rob Lowe vehicle Oxford Blues (1984), the Comedy film A Private Function (1984), the Jim Carrey Horror comedy Once Bitten (1985), and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies; his piece of music - or Suite - Shredder's Suite is taken from the soundtrack to the first of the three films, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990). He recently contributed to the soundtrack of the animated film The Wild (2006).