Grant Horsley Music
ABOUT GRANT
Grant is a classically trained pianist.
He is a composer, arranger, performer and educator and lives in the UK.
Born in 1959, Grant graduated from the prestigious Royal College of Music, London in 1982 with a Dip. RCM (Perf) This is the same specialist university which was attended by Gustav Holst, Benjamin Britten, James Galway and James Horner.
He gained the teaching qualification Cert Ed (Fento)from Greenwich University, London in 2002.
He was a founder Member of the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors (MCIEA) in 2008.
Whilst he was a student at the RCM, he occasionally rehearsed with the Royal Ballet School and later with the London Festival Ballet, including workshops led by Christopher Gable at summer schools, which contributed greatly to his love of classical dance.
He went on to work for the Cameron Macintosh group as a pianist, whilst continuing to work as a pianist, accompanist, teacher and composer of ballet music.
His career has involved him working as a session musician as well as performing piano concertos, playing in jazz trios and quartets, playing in rock/function bands, accompanying singers and instrumentalists, and working in various theatres in the role of musical director.
He spent ten years as Head of Music in the Performing Arts department at Great Yarmouth College in Norfolk, where he specialised in preparing young people for stage performance in classical, rock, jazz and musical theatre.
In 1999 he started examining for Edexcel (now Pearson) education and in 2003 became Senior Examiner for A level music and Music Technology, leading a team of examiners in marking AS and A level exam papers in composition, writing question papers and collaborating in recommending grade boundaries.
He has played extensively for dance schools around the country playing for classical, tap and contemporary dance, and has been asked by teachers to write short compositions to be used in festivals, competitions and young people’s projects. His music has been used for programmes on both BBC television and international networks.
More recently he spent five years as MD for Gunton Hall, Lowestoft running a small scale "Strictly-type" band, performing a wide variety of music for dance, ranging from ballroom to present chart material.
As an independent music professional, he now currently divides his time between composing, private tutoring and playing as a registered pianist for both ISTD and RAD ballet examinations.
He is married to Kate; they have three grown up sons and live in South Norfolk.