Christopher Gunning

Gunning's film and television compositions received many awards, including the 2007 BAFTA Award for Best Film Music for La Vie en Rose, as well as three additional awards for Agatha Christie's Poirot, Middlemarch, and Porterhouse Blue. He also won three Ivor Novello Awards, for the TV miniseries Rebecca, and the film scores for Under Suspicion (1991), and Firelight (1997). His other film scores included Goodbye Gemini (1970), Hands of the Ripper (1971), Ooh... You Are Awful (1972), the film version of Man About the House (1974), In Celebration (1975), Rogue Male (1976), Charlie Muffin (1979), Rise and Fall of Idi Amin (1981), Knights of God (1987), When the Whales Came (1989), Lighthouse Hill (2004) and Grace of Monaco (2014). In the 1970s and 1980s, Gunning collaborated with rock musician Colin Blunstone and was responsible for the distinctive string arrangement on Blunstone's album One Year, including the 1972 hit "Say You Don't Mind". He also provided the string arrangements on "Won't Somebody Dance With Me", the Ivor Novello award-winning song written and performed by Lynsey De Paul as well as another of de Paul's hit singles "My Man and Me" and her 1974 album "Taste Me... Don't Waste Me". He was also repondible for the orchestral arrangements on "Don't Let Me Down", "Love Makes The World Go Round" and "The Air That I Breathe" from the 1974 album Hollies by The Hollies. Gunning composed the music for nearly all of the Poirot TV films starring David Suchet, and worked on all three series of Rosemary and Thyme featuring Felicity Kendal and Pam Ferris. His New Yorkshire Theme was used as daily start-up music for Yorkshire Television from 1982 and an extract from that piece formed the theme to YTV's local news programme Calendar. His music for the Martini advertising campaign, heard around the world for thirty years, won three Clio Awards. The music he composed for Black Magic commercials, in 1971 and used for a further 15 years, became equally famous. Also (indicating Gunning's sense of humour and self-deprecation), his music for a Winalot Prime dog food commercial in 1988 was later expanded into The Long March and recorded and released as a charity record by the Barking Light Orchestra.

In recognition of Gunning's contribution to music, he received a BASCA Gold Badge Award on 19 October 2011. As well as his many film awards listed above, Gunning's scores for The Big Battalions, Wild Africa, Cold Lazarus and When the Whales Came also received nominations for BAFTA and Ivor Novello Awards.