Trevor Alfred Charles Jones is known for composing the soundtracks of several major fantasy films towards the end of the 20th century, including collaborations with U2 and David Bowie.
Born in Cape Town in 1949, Jones’s family was relocated to District Six following the passing of the Group Areas Act by the apartheid government.
Given that his mother was the sole breadwinner for the family, Jones grew up in chronic poverty. However, he was motivated to one day become a music composer.
He became obsessed with music and film, and at the age of 10, he was accepted into the South African College of Music on a municipal bursary.
This gave him the skills he needed to further his studies overseas, attending the Royal Academy of Music in London on a scholarship awarded by the Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Town, Dr J.P. Duminy.
Here he spent four years studying composition, orchestration, conducting, piano and organ.
After completing his studies at the institution, Jones was appointed Classical Music Reviewer for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
While continuing to work at the BBC on a part-time basis, he attended the University of York, where he completed his Master’s in Music and Film under the mentorship of Professor Wilfrid Mellers.
Here, he studied jazz, Pop, Rock, Folk, Ethnic Music, avant-garde 20th-century music, Electronic Music, and Acoustics.
Jones then attended The National Film and Television School in England, where he composed the score for “The Dollar Bottom”, produced by fellow students. The film was the first from the institution to win an Oscar.
By the time he completed his studies, he had written 23 student film scores.
Jones’s achievement eventually caught the attention of British filmmaker Sir John Boorman, who was looking for someone to help score his Arthurian epic, Excalibur, released in 1981.
While most of the music was scored by Richard Wagner and Carl Orff, Boorman brought in the up-and-coming Alfred Jones to track the dramatic cues and periodic music for certain scenes.
This brought him to the attention of Jim Henson, who was seeking a young composer eager to work in the experimental space for his film, The Dark Crystal.
The final product was a rich, symphonic score that used the London Symphony Orchestra and various period instruments, including the crumhorn, recorder, and double flageolet.
Then, in 1986, Jones teamed up with Henson once again, this time for his fantasy musical Labyrinth, for which David Bowie wrote and performed the vocal tracks.
Developing a refined sound
Reflecting on his work in Excalibur, he later said that it did not garner as much attention as he had thought, and he began to rethink his approach to dramatic scoring.
This became evident in the late 1980s, when his work featured more synth chords and minimal patterns, as seen in his scores for movies like Mississippi Burning (1988) and Sea of Love (1989).
Though the South African is most renowned for his scoring of The Last of the Mohicans, released in 1992 and directed by Michael Mann.
Jones was initially briefed to write an electronic score for the film, but it was later decided that an orchestral style suited the movie better, leaving him little time.
To help Jones finish the score on time, Randy Edelman was brought in to help with minor scenes. As a result, Edelman was co-credited for the score, making it ineligible for Oscar consideration.
Jones also went on to compose several scores for television productions in the mid-1990s, including Gulliver’s Travels, Merlin, and Cleopatra.
Following a successful career, Jones has returned to lecture at the National Film and Television School, as well as provide masterclasses at the Royal College of Music and several other academic institutions.
He has also founded a scholarship for South Africans to attend the National Film and Television School.
Notable artists he has collaborated with throughout his career include Sting, U2, Sinead O’Connor, Charlotte Church, Britney Spears and Elvis Costello.
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