Biography
Composer Jan Randall has been creating music for film and television since 1985. He is an accomplished pianist and guitarist, and has spent his life working in styles that span across all music boundaries.
Projects Jan composed music for include the feature film "Naked Frailties", several episodes of the History Channel's "Faces in History" series, and the NFB documentary "Lost Over Burma" which was narrated by Christopher Plummer. He has twice received AMPIA awards for Best Composer/Musical Score, and also scored the "Protection Force" series which took AMPIA's "Best of Festival" award in 1995.
Recent projects include the nature series Discovering Wildness for Discovery Canada, the documentary Enemy Within for the National Film Board, and the live world broadcast of the 2001 World Championships in Athletics for which he was both composer and Music Director. This event was seen by an estimated viewing audience of four billion people and featured over 5000 dancers, The Edmonton Symphony, and the recruiting of a thousand voice choir.
A Midsummer Night's Ice Dream was produced in 1994 and starred Elizabeth Manley. This was the television production of Jan's ballet for figure skaters, and it has been broadcast in Canada, the U.S.A., Japan, China, Mexico, South Africa, Iceland, Singapore, and Denmark. It also lead to a commission for the world broadcast of the 1996 World Figure Skating Championship Ceremonies featuring Kurt Browning.
Jan's experience also includes 3 years as Musical Director with Toronto's Second City during the time of the original SCTV series. Among those he collaborated with there were Michael Myers, Catherine O'Hara, Ron James, Richard Kind, Robin Duke, and Ryan Stiles.
Jan Randall has been a sideman for Bo Diddley, Otis Rush, Amos Garrett, Sha Na Na, Spencer Davis, Sam Lay and Gary U.S. Bonds. He has appeared with the Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina, and Detroit Symphony Orchestras, and has orchestrated works for Ben Heppner and Robert Guillaume. Jan is the ongoing musical director for the Banff International Television Festival and has performed in special tributes for John Cleese, Bob Newhart, Dame Edna, Martin Short and Kelsey Grammer. Jan Randall has served on the board of the Guild of Canadian Film Composers since 2001.
