Kerry Churchill Minnear (born 2 January 1948 in the town of

Shaftesbury Shaftesbury () is a town and civil parish in Dorset, England. It is situated on the A30 road, west of Salisbury, near the border with Wiltshire. It is the only significant hilltop settlement in Dorset, being built about above sea level on a ...

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

) is a

multi-instrumentalist A multi-instrumentalist is a musician who plays two or more musical instruments at a professional level of proficiency. Also known as doubling, the practice allows greater ensemble flexibility and more efficient employment of musicians, where ...

musician known primarily for his work with the

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...

band

Gentle Giant Gentle Giant were a British progressive rock band active between 1970 and 1980. The band were known for the complexity and sophistication of their music and for the varied musical skills of their members. All of the band members were multi-inst ...

from 1970 to 1980. He graduated from the

Royal Academy of Music The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is the oldest conservatoire in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the first Duke of ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

with a major in musical composition. As a member of

, he contributed to all 11 albums over the 10 year life of the band. Though he is adept at several instruments, he primarily played keyboards and provided back up and lead vocals. In addition to keyboard, he also played a multitude of other instruments such as the cello, tenor recorder, and classical percussion (including

vibraphone The vibraphone is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a ''vibraphonist,'' ''vibraharpist,' ...

marimba The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre ...

xylophone The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Like the glockenspiel (which uses metal bars), the xylophone essentially consists of a set of tuned wooden keys arranged in the ...

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionall ...

and

snare drum The snare (or side drum) is a percussion instrument that produces a sharp staccato sound when the head is struck with a drum stick, due to the use of a series of stiff wires held under tension against the lower skin. Snare drums are often used ...

). He also composed the original musical soundtrack for the video game ''Azrael's Tear'' in 1996, starring Ray Shulman. He now lives in Solihull (West Midlands) with his wife Lesley and has three children, Sally, Sam and Susie. He also composes for cinema and television. In the years following the dissolution of Gentle Giant, Minnear was a member of a Christian music band, The Reapers, in the 1980s. He was also a teacher and church organist. He and his wife Lesley own Alucard Music, which releases Gentle Giant CDs and DVDs. He also plays occasionally with the group Three Friends which reproduces Gentle Giant songs in concerts. Three Friends is composed of: Mick Wilson singing lead vocals, Gary Green and Andrew Williams on guitar, Roger Carey on bass, Kerry Minnear and John Donaldson on piano and keyboards, and Malcolm Mortimore on drums. Minnear, Green and Mortimore have all been members of Gentle Giant, with Minnear and Green serving continuously and Mortimore solely on the album Three Friends. His son Sam Minnear is a founding member of alternative pop group Misty's Big Adventure.

The Reapers

* 1982 : ''Star of the morning'' * 1984 : ''Come And Praise'' * 1986 : ''Christmas Joy''

References

External links

Blazemonger.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Minnear, Kerry 1948 births Living people English rock keyboardists Progressive rock keyboardists British performers of Christian music People from Shaftesbury Gentle Giant members Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music