History
In 2020, Pruess scored two hours of original music for the epic historical film, The Lady of Heaven , which opened in cinemas in the U.K. in 2022 to great controversy, resulting in mass protests by Sunni Muslims in Leicester, Birmingham and Manchester, which forced CineWorld to cancel showing the film nationally due to physical threats to their staff.
2019 saw the ITV flagship prime-time TV series, Beecham House , written and directed by Gurinder Chadha which Pruess co-composed with EMMY Award winning composer Natalie Holt. Previously, Pruess composed the original music score for a string of major films by Chadha, including her two number one UK box office smash hit films, Bend It Like Beckham (top ten in the USA box office, number 1 in India), and Bride and Prejudice . Pruess scored her previous films, including Bhaji on the Beach (1993, co-composed with EMMY and BAFTA winning composer John Altman) and What's Cooking? , which opened the big US Sundance Film Festival, January 2000, and was released throughout the USA in October 2000, to critical acclaim (UK release was September 2001). Chadha's romantic Bollywood influenced feature film, Bride and Prejudice, starring Aishwarya Rai, Anupam Kher and Martin Henderson, was released by Miramax (USA) and Pathé (Europe) in October 2003, and again was number one in the UK, India and South Africa, settling for number 15 for three weeks in the USA. Aishwarya Rai was again the big star in Pruess's further film score project, The Mistress of Spices , [1] directed by Paul Mayeda Berges, which was released in the UK and India early 2006. Pruess scored Chadha's feature film, It's a Wonderful Afterlife , April 2010 box office release, the film reaching number 7 in the UK.
In 2009, Pruess was nominated for Best Soundtrack at the RTS Awards (Royal Television Society) for his music for the acclaimed BBC-TV drama series, Moses Jones , which also garnered him a British Academy Award nomination for Best Original Music in May 2010. Since the series, he has teamed up with Ugandan musicians Denis Mugagga and Daniel Sewagudde (formerly of DaTwinz fame in Uganda), to create the group the Ganda Boys with an album The War of Love released in 2009, and live shows in UK, France, Germany and Uganda, and with the release of their second album, Africa, extensive national radio play and media coverage in Uganda. Further albums, Mountains of the Moon, Bakisimba and Dance with DaTwinz have had an impact in Uganda. Pruess is a core performing member and band leader of the group and co-writes the songs and arranges and produces all the recordings.
Pruess scored the BBC-TV drama series Five Days II , broadcast in January 2010. In 2007, he formed another world fusion ambient music band, At-Ma, with singer Russell Stone and tabla player Tom Simenauer; they give concerts in the UK and Europe, headlining the Warsaw Philharmonic in November 2010. Pruess performs on sitar, harmonium, trumpet and percussion in a spontaneous musical output.
Brazilian music featured in Pruess's 2006 soundtrack: 90 minute Discovery Channel docu-drama Gold Diggers – The Biggest Bank Robbery in History. An edgy, fast paced expose of the 2005 massive bank robbery in Fortaleza, Brazil, directed by British director James Erskine. Featuring energetic Brazilian rhythms and tribal percussion layers, along with a filmic, hard-hitting music score, the programme itself became part of the police investigation in Brazil. In 2007, Pruess composed the soundtrack for Turner Prize nominated artist Zarina Bhimji's film Waiting, which became part of the Turner Prize exhibition in Liverpool during October 2007. In late 2011, Pruess completed his third art film soundtrack for her, "Yellow Patch", charting the origins of the migration of the Gujarati people from Kutch, India, to East Africa. Bhimji was born in Uganda and has captured images from her African experience.
As a songwriter, Pruess wrote David Van Day's chart hit, "Young American's Talking". For Cliff Richard, Pruess wrote the title track "Silver's Home Tonight" on the 1983 album, Silver ; and "Two Worlds", an additional track (equivalent to a B-side) on the Christmas number one chart hit, "The Millennium Prayer". In November 1999, Pruess composed for the most successful independent television drama series in British history, Peak Practice , completing the last four series (13 episodes each) for Carlton Television until its conclusion in 2003.
In 2000, Pruess contributed keyboards and sounds for composer John Altman on the US television film RKO 281 – the Making of Citizen Kane , which received 13 nominations for the Emmy Awards, winning the Emmy for best music soundtrack for 2000. Pruess worked in his home studio with the director of the film, Ben Ross, to record and perform the initial music sketches, and then also played keyboards with the orchestra for the final recordings of the soundtrack in London.
Pruess is the director/founder of the UK record label Heaven on Earth Music. His "Sacred Chants" series of recordings is known globally and used by many leaders of the human development movement in their motivational and inspiration work. Pruess has performed sitar concerts for Prince Charles (at his home at Highgrove for a personal concert), the Dalai Lama (large event at the Houses of Parliament, London), Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (founder of the Art of Living Foundation), in Copenhagen, Denmark and then Zagreb, Croatia, and then at the huge World Culture Festival, Olympic Stadium, Berlin, Germany in July 2011). In 2013, Pruess and the Ganda Boys performed a national concert in Kampala, Uganda, in the presence of the Nnabagereka, Queen of Buganda and senior members of the Ugandan government, the Queen coming on stage and greeting Pruess while the last number was still playing. In 2014, Pruess was co-music director for a benefit concert with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for "Singing the Oceans", featuring Pruess's original song "Giants of the Slow Ballet", a collaboration with flautist Tim Wheater, "Whale Song" (Pruess playing sitar on stage with the RPO), and the Ganda Boys song, "Our Brothers" (Pruess playing grand piano on stage with the RPO), all orchestrated and arranged by Pruess for the event which featured world music artists like Nwang Cheong, Kristen Hoffmann and Levon Messasian.
On the recorded music side, yoga and spiritual teachers/leaders around the world use Pruess's music CDs for sessions, videos and workshops — these include: "Language of Love", "Welcome Home", "108 Sacred Names of Mother Divine", "Sacred Chants of Shiva", "Angel of the Earth" and "Sacred Chants of Buddha". Anthony Robbins, in his inspirational workshops, feature "Devi Prayer" from the album 108 Sacred Names of Mother Divine, as featured on the Opfrah Winfrey Show.
Pruess is an active Art of Living teacher, the first teacher to bring the Art of Living stress management courses into high security prisons in the UK. He has taught these valuable programmes at the headquarters of British Aerospace and introduced the Art of Living knowledge to many musicians, film directors, thinkers and teachers. His home environment includes a fully equipped recording studio and composing suite of instruments and gadgets. He is married with four children, and lives in Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK. He is also a photographer, graphic designer and published poet. He originally studied physics and philosophy at MIT in Boston, and after leaving the USA, lived in Kenya, where he was a full-time member of the teaching staff at the East African Conservatoire of Music in Nairobi. He is founder and director/CEO of the humanitarian organisation (UK charity), the Ganda Foundation, started by the Ganda Boys, involved with fundraising concerts and activities to bring First World awareness to dire conditions in the Third World. The Ganda Foundation creates films and documentaries and holds fundraising concerts in Europe, and the work of the organisation has directly benefited hospitals and schools in Uganda.
In December 2020, Pruess composed the original score for the historical feature film The Lady of Heaven produced by Enlightened Kingdom. He stated: "My own prayer is that this historical record reaches the minds and souls of people around the world." [2]
