The music of Murray Gold will be familar to a large part of the UK audience since he has contributed to a number of very popular television shows, including those icons of BBC programming, "Doctor Who" and "Blue Peter". Gold was born in Portsmouth and started his career as a writer for radio and the theatre, before making his mark as a composer. In that latter capacity he has provided the music for a number of films including "Beautiful Creatures", "Wild About Harry", "Miranda" and "Death at a Funeral", and several television productions including "Vanity Fair", "Hawking" and "Shameless", and has been nominated several times by BAFTA for his original music for television. Much of his most well-known television work has been in collaboration with writer and producer Russel T Davies.
Gold's collaboration with Davies started with "Queer as Folk" (1 and 2) and included "The Second Coming" and "Casanova" before taking on the busy role of music director for the new revamped series of "Doctor Who". The music of the original Doctor Who series has always been innovative, particular in its use of electronic sounds, but when the series returned with a fresh look in 2005 it had a more cinematic quality both with larger-budget effects and with a stronger emotional connection to its audience. This demanded a new approach to the music and Murray has frequently used a large orchestral sound with the help of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and orchestrator and conductor Ben Foster. The music has such an intimate association with the series, that a special concert event was held in November 2006 in Wales' capital city of Cardiff, and a similar Doctor Who Prom Concert will shortly be held in London's Royal Albert Hall as part of the 2008 season of Promenade Concerts.
The new Doctor Who series has included a number of Christmas Special episodes and also spawned two spin-off series - a more adult series called "Torchwood" (an anagram of "Doctor Who") and a series aimed at children of all ages called "The Sarah Jane Adventures" which features one of the best-loved companions of the Doctor. Murray Gold himself has featured in a cameo part in the Doctor Who 2007 Christmas Special episode "Voyage of the Damned" which also featured the singer and actress Kylie Minoque in a non-singing part. The story had a spaceship in the shape of the original Titanic and Gold was one of the players in the band playing on board the futuristic liner. See also our overviews of the two albums of Doctor Who music from Series 1 and 2 and Series 3 and our article on Electronic Music which describes how the original theme music was constructed by Delia Derbyshire at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
Murray Gold photo courtesy of Katie Vandyck
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