Composer of the month for November is Prokofiev (pronounced Pro-cough-ee-ef) –  both the Russian 1891 born Sergei Prokofiev and also his grandson Gabriel Prokofiev who is 1975 London born and both composer, producer of dance, hip hop and grime music and DJ.

Sergei Prokofiev 

A Russian composer, pianist and conductor.

Sergei Prokofiev was born in Russia in 1882. His father was a farm manager and his mother played the piano. Prokofiev started taking piano lessons with his mother at the age of three. He started to show unusual talent by the time he was five when he composed his first piece. His mother wrote it down for him and it was called Indian Gallop. By the time he was seven Prokofiev learned to play chess. He was an excellent chess player and his love of chess stayed with him throughout his life. He even played against, and beat, a chess world champion in 1914.By the time he was nine he had written his first opera, The Giant. By the time he was 13 he was studying at a school for music and had written lots of pieces. He studied with a lot of famous musicians including Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov who also taught Stravinsky.

Poems and paintings of the time inspired him and the music he composed was new and different – bringing strange harmonies, dynamic rhythms and lots of humour.  He travelled to American and then France.  1936 Prokofiev returned to Russia, where he spent the last 18 years of his life. During that time he wrote his most famous works, Peter and the Wolf and Romeo and Juliet. He also wrote several other pieces for children and music for a few movies.

Romeo and Juliet Dance of the Knights theme tune of the BBC’s The Apprentice television programme) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_hOR50u7ek
Music for Children March https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSRhNYL05K8
Troika  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GUzJ7fQBtg
Lieutenant Kijé Suite: Introduction – Romance (this theme was used by Sting) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1ONbdLQtVo
Peter and the Wolf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ueGfjBKbiE
Cinderella Waltz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOV7yWEv54o

Gabriel Prokofiev is a London-based composer, producer of dance, electro, hip-hop and grime and DJ. He is the grandson of the 20th Century composer Sergei Prokofiev Throughout his career so far, Prokofiev has written electronica music plus a wide range of orchestral pieces, chamber music, vocal works, film scores and ballets.

Prokofiev wrote Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra in 2006 during a time when he was wrestling with his creative loyalties between classical and electronic music. According to Prokofiev, a promoter asked him to write a concerto for a DJ using turntables, with the aim of bringing classical music to new places and new people. At first he didn’t like the idea – thinking it might turn out to sound terrible – but then he had a brainwave. What if the turntable player used the sounds created by the orchestra and manipulated them? It would be like a battle of sounds.

To begin with, the piece shook up what was expected of classical music, but when it was performed at the BBC Proms in August 2011 with world champion DJ Mr Switch as soloist, it was met great critical acclaim. The piece has become a huge success, performed all over the world.

After studying to be a classical composer at Birmingham and York universities, Gabriel Prokofiev first made a name for himself within the worlds of Hip-Hop and Garage music founding a record label called NONCLASSICAL in 2003.

Concerto for bass drum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llLVNW_q4OA

Gabriel Prokofiev – Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38atRejUORM
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/ten-pieces/gabriel-prokofiev-concerto-for-turntables-and-orchestra-5th-movement/zvqjrj6

Violin Concerto https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wyeh72IqK-Q

https://www.gabrielprokofiev.com/biography