Brian Eno

Musician, composer, record producer, music theorist, singer, campaigner

Brian Eno is a musician, record producer, and music theorist. He began his career in music with the 1970s band Roxy Music and after leaving the band embarked on what was to be an extremely influential solo career. He has produced seven albums for U2, three albums by Talking Heads, and has worked on records by James, Laurie Anderson, Coldplay, Paul Simon and Grace Jones.

Eno studied at the Winchester School of Art, where he was inspired by minimalist painting, before joining the band Roxy Music as their keyboard and synthesiser player. The band enjoyed considerable success but Eno left in 1973 due to a deteriorating relationship with lead singer Bryan Ferry. His subsequent solo career also proved very successful, and his music was highly influential in developing the genre 'ambient music'. His thirty-five year solo career has so far yielded over twenty albums, plus numerous collaborative works with artists such as Talking Heads and David Bowie. Eno has also provided music for several films, including The lovely Bones (2009), and Ecstasy, and for the documentary For All Mankind. During this period, he also established the label Obscure Records, which showcases the works of less well-known composers and artists. He was in demand as a record producer from virtually the start of his solo career, and was the recipient of the Best Producer award at both the 1994 and 1996 BRIT Awards.

Eno has a newspaper column for The Observer and writes regularly for Prospect magazine. He is a patron of environmental NGO Client Earth, as well as a board member of BASIC, the British American Security Information Council, which works towards creating a nuclear weapon-free world.