Will Gregory

Quality 0.50 · 4 views · Updated 2 months ago

English musician and record producer (born 1959)

title: "Will Gregory" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1959-births", "english-male-songwriters", "english-rock-saxophonists", "english-classical-saxophonists", "english-male-saxophonists", "english-rock-keyboardists", "english-record-producers", "goldfrapp-members", "musicians-from-bristol", "ivor-novello-award-winners", "english-classical-musicians", "english-classical-composers", "english-synth-pop-new-wave-musicians", "living-people", "alumni-of-the-university-of-york", "21st-century-english-saxophonists"] description: "English musician and record producer (born 1959)" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Gregory" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary English musician and record producer (born 1959) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox musical artist"]

Field	Value
name	Will Gregory
landscape	yes
background	non_vocal_instrumentalist
birth_name	William Owen Gregory
birth_date
birth_place	Bristol, England
genre	Electronic, trip hop, synthpop, Western orchestral/chamber
occupation	Musician, record producer
instrument	Keyboards, drum programming, guitars, synthesizer, oboe, saxophone
years_active	1981–present
label	Mute
::

William Owen Gregory (born 17 September 1959) is an English musician and record producer. He is best known as the lead keyboardist, producer, and composer of the electronic music duo Goldfrapp.

Early life

Gregory was born in Bristol, the son of an actress and an opera chorus-line singer.

::quote I got into music kind of by default as it was the only thing I was good at – I was the weird one at school who practiced the piano during lunch break. In my teens I met other musicians and was so relieved to find some like-minds that I think I never wanted to leave the 'weird' muso club – perhaps it’s the same for many musicians. I ended up playing oboe and then moved on to sax, which got me into diverse musical disciplines. ::

He studied Western orchestral and chamber music at the University of York.

Career

In the 1980s, Gregory predominantly recorded and toured with Tears for Fears.

In the 1990s, Gregory performed with artists including Peter Gabriel, the Cure, and Portishead, as well as playing oboe for Tori Amos and recording with Paula Rae Gibson. In 1991, he played saxophone with the London Sinfonietta for the Paris début of John Adams's opera Nixon in China. In 1999, vocalist Alison Goldfrapp and Gregory formed the duo Goldfrapp. The pairing has led to international critical, popular, and commercial success. In 1995 Gregory composed the score for the football hooligan film I.D.

In the 2000s, as well as Goldfrapp activities, he played saxophone on Portishead's 2008 album Third (on the tracks "Magic Doors" and "Threads").

On 31 March 2011, Gregory's first opera, Piccard in Space, premiered at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London. The libretto by Hattie Naylor focused on Auguste Piccard and Paul Kipfer's first balloon ascent, and the theories of Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton, both of whom are characters in the drama. The reviews were generally negative.1 April 2011 press on Piccard in Space, included: ; {{cite web | url= http://Telegraph.co.UK/culture/music/opera/8422093/Piccard-in-Space-Queen-Elizabeth-Hall-review.html | title= Piccard in Space, Queen Elizabeth Hall, review – Telegraph | date= 1 April 2011 | work= The Daily Telegraph}} and {{cite web | url= http://FT.com/cms/s/2/54c55c18-5c42-11e0-8f48-00144feab49a.html | title= Piccard in Space, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London – FT.com | date= 1 April 2011 | newspaper= Financial Times | url-access=subscription }}

On 11 March 2013, a newly commissioned baroquesque Gregory work (for orchestra and Moog, based on a sarabande of Johann Sebastian Bach) was performed at the Roundhouse in London. The performance was part of BBC Radio 3's Baroque Remixed series, which also included a piece by Matthew Herbert.

Gregory's other saxophone work includes writing for and playing with the Apollo Saxophone Quartet, and playing with Spiritualized, Moondog and Michael Nyman.

He composed the music for the 2017 series Spy in the Wild.

He composed the music for the Royal Shakespeare Company's 2019 production of King John at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon. It was announced in 2021 that Gregory would provide an original score featuring Alison Goldfrapp and Adrian Utley for the BBC and Amazon Prime Video psychological thriller series Chloe.

In October 2025 he was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for his piece Heat Ray: The Archimedes Project.

Discography

with Tears for Fears

Songs from the Big Chair (1985)

with Tori Amos

Little Earthquakes (1992)

with Peter Gabriel

OVO (2000)
Up (2002)
Long Walk Home: Music from the Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002)

with Portishead

Roseland NYC Live (1998)
Third (2008)

with other artists

Four Ways to Cook a Goose – Loggerheads (1987)
Gas Giants – Gas Giants (1994)

Film soundtracks

I.D. (1995)
Serengeti (2020, BBC/Discovery Channel wildlife documentary)

Television soundtracks

Old Bear Stories (Carlton Television for ITV, 1993-1997)
BBC - Shoot For The Moon (About Space Mountain Paris, 1995)

References

"Synth whizz Will Gregory gears up with ATC SCM25A".
"Will Gregory". IMDB.
(29 March 2017). "Goldfrapp's Will Gregory on Their Enduring Partnership".
(29 September 2014). "Will Gregory Interview – The Moog Ensemble!".
"Will Gregory composes debut opera for BBC Concert Orchestra: Piccard in Space". BBC.
[https://vimeo.com/95893145 Will Gregory's Moog Ensemble] on [[Vimeo]]
[http://www.factmag.com/2015/03/21/real-world-solutions-why-radiophonic-workshop-and-a-moog-orchestra-are-releasing-insanely-high-quality-albums/ Real World Studios, Bowers & Wilkins, and Society of Sound : Radiophonic Workshop reunited and The Will Gregory Moog Ensemble]
"Players | Will Gregory Moog Ensemble".
"Biography of Paula Rae Gibson". Jazz CDs.
"Goldfrapp's Will Gregory tackles opera with Piccard in Space". [[The Times]].
(16 October 2015). "A siren sings". [[The Guardian]].
(2013). "Baroque Remixed – Part 2". BBC.
"Biography | Apollo saxophone quartet".
(4 May 2019). "10 Questions for Musician Will Gregory".
(9 June 2014). "Post".
"BBC – Spy in the Wild – Media Centre". BBC.
"Latest Press Releases | Royal Shakespeare Company".
Davies, Michael. (27 September 2019). "Review: King John (Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon)".
"Goldfrapp's Will Gregory to Score Amazon's & BBC's 'Chloe' | Film Music Reporter".
(2025-10-14). "The Ivors Classical Awards".
Newman, Melinda. "Scoring 'Serengeti': Goldfrapp's Will Gregory on Writing for Baboons, Hyenas and Lions".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::