Biography
Gordon Cree is a Scottish musician of international reputation. He was classically trained in piano and singing at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now known as the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland), before embarking on a professional career which is about to enter its fourth decade.
He contributes regularly to musical projects and performances across the stylistic spectrum, including classical, jazz, traditional Scottish, and music theatre.
His piano-playing has featured on many commercially-released recordings, as well as on many soundtracks of television, radio and film, and he has acted as accompanist to many stars from the world of music and entertainment - from American opera royalty, Marilyn Horne to British musical national treasure, Dame Vera Lynn. He has worked as accompanist to several touring opera companies and as orchestral piano/celeste player with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.
He has given recitals on the finest organs in the country, and is one of the most frequent players giving the daily lunchtime recitals at Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum. He is currently organist and director of music at St. Andrew’s West Parish Church, which is one of the most prominent of Glasgow’s City Centre church buildings.
He has sung cameo roles in professional operatic productions, and still frequently appears as an oratorio soloist and guest soloist for choirs throughout the UK. He frequently travels on the world’s luxury cruise liners, on which he presents an evening act of singing while incorporating his various other musical talents.
He has composed quite prolifically, both serious music and light music. Among his most frequently-performed works are his “Scottish Blessing,” for mixed choir, “The Blue Angel,” which is danced-to by ballroom dancers through the world, his “Benquhat March,” which is widely performed by brass bands, and – in 2024 – he has supplied the title music for the forthcoming audiobook release of the children’s book, “Pearl Pavlova,” by Annie Day Fernie, which he also narrates. His arrangements and orchestrations are performed by orchestras around the globe, including the Halle Orchestra, the BBC Concert Orchestra, The Auckland Sinfonia, The Ulster Orchestra, L’Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland, the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, the Pacific Symphony Orchestra and – most prolifically – the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, who have used his arrangement of “Eightsome Reels” as an encore on every international tour for over a decade.
In 2024 he completed a brand new edition of Sir Granville Bantock’s 2024 opera, “The Seal Woman,” of which he also conducted the first full performance - with orchestra - in Scotland.
He also occasionally works as an actor. In 2018, he appeared in the critically-acclaimed play, “Tipping the Hat to Flanders & Swann” by John Bett, in which he played Donald Swann and which ran in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen. In 2024, he has narrated the forthcoming children’s audiobook, “Pearl Pavlova” (by Annie Day Fernie). He has also supplied voiceovers for theatre and advertising.
He is very much in demand as an after-dinner speaker, adjudicator and master of ceremonies.
In 1991 he was awarded "Scottish Young Organist of the Year," in 2007 he was made a Freeman of the City of Glasgow; in 2015 he was elected a "Fellow of the Guild of Musicians and Singers" and in 2019 he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Scottish Music Hall Society.
He is currently vice-president of the Scottish Showbusiness Benevolent Fund, a custodial trustee of the Scottish Cinema Organ Trust, and a director and trustee of the Renfield Centre.