Chris Craker (born 1959 in

Bromley Bromley is a large town in Greater London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley. It is south-east of Charing Cross, and had an estimated population of 87,889 as of 2011. Originally part of Kent, Bromley became a market town, c ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, England), studied the clarinet at the Royal Northern College of Music from 1977–1981. He had a successful career as a clarinetist, playing with orchestras including the London Symphony, the

Royal Philharmonic The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London, that performs and produces primarily classic works. The RPO was established by Thomas Beecham in 1946. In its early days, the orchestra secured profitable ...

, the Scottish Chamber, and the London Chamber. He also founded and was the artistic director of The Prometheus Ensemble, one of Britain's premier chamber ensembles, and conducted a number of West End musicals such as ''

Chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

''. He went on to conduct the works of

Karl Jenkins Sir Karl William Pamp Jenkins (born 17 February 1944) is a Welsh multi-instrumentalist and composer. His best known works include the song " Adiemus" and the ''Adiemus'' album series; '' Palladio''; ''The Armed Man''; and his ''Requiem''. J ...

in Japan, as well as the Bangkok debut of Chris de Burgh. His work as a composer is published by Music Sales and frequently broadcast on Classic FM. Craker was selected to produce the music for the Asian Games, including the hit theme song "Reach For The Stars", which was performed by Sony BMG pop artist

Tata Young Amita Marie "Tata" Young ( th, อมิตา มารี "ทาทา" ยัง; born 14 December 1980) is a Thai singer, actress and model who gained prominence in Thailand when she placed first in a national singing contest at age 11, su ...

and sold over 2.3 million copies, reaching No. 1 in the pop charts. He moved into the record business in the late 1990s and worked as a record producer for numerous labels, including

EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British Transnational corporation, transnational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in March 1 ...

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...

, and BMG. He founded several records labels, such as

Black Box Music Black Box Music is an independent music and artist development company based out of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. Originally operating under Black Box Recordings, the company began exclusively as a record label in 2004. It has since expanded to in ...

in 1998, which he later sold to

Sanctuary Records Sanctuary Records Group Limited was a record label based in the United Kingdom and is as of 2013 a subsidiary of BMG Rights Management solely for reissues. Until June 2007, it was the largest independent record label in the UK and the largest m ...

. Sony BMG asked him to become the head of classics for the newly merged multi-national company. After one year in the London office, he was appointed general manager and senior vice president of the International Division of

Sony BMG Masterworks Sony Music Masterworks (Sony Masterworks) is a record label, the result of a restructuring of Sony Music's classical music division. Before the acquisition of Bertelsmann's shares in the former Sony BMG, the label was known as Sony BMG Masterwor ...

, based in New York, where he stayed until his resignation in April 2008, after which he began to pursue independent activities once more—including founding the Karma Studios complex in Thailand. In 2008, Craker was appointed chairman of the Royal Northern College of Music development board.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Craker, Chris British clarinetists 1959 births A&R people Living people English record producers 21st-century clarinetists