Geoff Stradling
Geoff Stradling Composer, arranger, orchestrator and pianist Geoff Stradling started piano lessons at age six. His mother was his first teacher. By 13 he had gone through the piano instructors in his hometown, Bellingham Washington, and began studying bi-weekly in Seattle at The Cornish School. Encouraged by his piano instructor, Geoff began to study composition.
As a freshman in high school, Geoff created his first big band for which he played and composed. As a sophomore in college, he entered a national composition contest sponsored by the National Association of Jazz Educators, and won.
At age twenty Geoff moved to Europe, soaking in the European experience: food, wine, melody. Melody! Different from the U.S. where harmony and rhythm ruled, here melody was king. Melody got into his soul, becoming a part of his life, and an important part of his music.
In 1984 Geoff moved to Los Angeles where he met and married his wife of 38 years, Production Designer, and USC faculty member Mimi Gramatky.
L.A. work has varied in style and medium: orchestrating and/or arranging for film and TV on “X- men: Wolverine”, “The Dark Knight Rises” and “Star Trek: Picard.” As a pianist he has been featured on everything from AMC's "Mad Men" to “Ritual de lo Habitual” - “Jane’s Addiction'” multi platinum CD, and two grammy nominated CDs with jazz and blues great Ernestine Anderson. After 25 years as an arranger on the Golden Globe Awards, in 2019 Geoff was hired as the music director, where he wears his composer, arranger and producer hats.
Twenty years of consulting and content development for Korg and Yamaha set him up for the pandemic’s challenges. He developed music software packages “DiscoverStation” and “CoreStation” for PluginGuru.com, and published two books - “Exercises For The Modern Pianist” and “13 Etudes For The Modern Pianist.”
After many years of NOT writing for big bands, in 2005 he’d been hearing others work in large jazz ensemble writing, and thought “I can write that well,” so he jumped back in. Geoff wrote two arrangements for Wayne Bergeron that were recorded in 2007, and just kept writing. By 2010 he had written a lot of new music, but the only way to get it played was to start a band, so at 55 years old he started a big band. (That’s a joke waiting for a punchline.) They got together and played once a week for a year before gigging, and have been performing ever since.
Geoff had wanted to make an album with the band, but had no way to finance it. He thought eventually he’d have a banner year, and be able to pay for the recording himself. That didn’t happen, but the pandemic did. Coming out of the lockdown, and the tremendous loss of lives, he realized that life can change in an instant and you’d better get moving. A Kickstarter campaign was launched. With those contributions, and with additional help, he and the StradBand were able to make “Nimble Digits,” which was released on April 26, 2024 by Origin Records.