"Fran has hit a new peak thanks to her collaboration with Simon Wallace"                                               James Gavin NY Times contributor and author of 'Lost In a Dream, the long night of Chet Baker'

"I think this is a magical pairing of lyricist and composer, Simon gives voice to her words in a wonderful way."   the late great jazz singer Susannah McCorkle

"Wallace is always on hand with a crisp phrase or an unexpected twist of melody. They make an imposing team." Clive Davis (The Times)

Don't bet against these songs achieving similar longevity to 'Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most'             Jack Massarik (London Evening Standard)

Simon was born in Newport South Wales. He studied music at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, University College Oxford and with jazz pianists in New York and London. He lives in SE London dividing his professional time between working as a composer and a performer. He is married to the singer Sarah Moule, they have a 2 year old son.

For more 20 years he has collaborated with TV and film composer Simon Brint. They first got together to co-write the score for a A Shocking Accident which won the 1981 Oscar for best live action short film. Since then they have written many hours of music for some of Britain's biggest TV shows including:

'The Egg' BBC 1 Easter 2002 Brint and Wallace co-wrote all the music including a new version of 'Lord of the Rings'. They also wrote all the music for the sellout UK theatre tour of 2000/2001. Simon Brint has been responsible for French and Saunders' music ever since duo first began performing and he has brought in Simon Wallace as an arranger, pianist and MD for many of their projects over the years.

BBC 2 Brint and Wallace co-wrote the incidental music scores for 18 of these self contained half hour comedy dramas staring Dawn French. They continue to be shown in many parts of the world.

BBC 2 spring 2002      Brint and Wallace co-wrote the theme and incidental music for this 8 episode sketch show. Previously they have worked with Lenny Henry on a number of shows including "Lenny Henry Goes Live" (BBC2) , "The Big Snog" (Channel 4) Comic Relief (BBC1)

'The Final Shout' BBC TV and Polygram Video. The incidental music for this 90min special is by Brint and Wallace who also produced the tracks sung by Marianne Faithful, P.P. Arnold, Lulu and Marcella Detroit. On other episodes of Ab Fab Wallace is heard playing hammond organ on the theme tune sung by Julie Tippett (aka Julie Driscoll).

Brint and Wallace co-wrote the salsa infused theme tune which has been used for many of Ruby Wax's British TV series and for her 2000/2001 American TV show. Over the years they have written and produced lots of incidental music and featured songs for Ruby's TV shows such as the big production number for an inebriated Joanna Lumley "Soft As a Baby's Bottom".

BBC2 Autumn 2002    All incidental music by Brint and Wallace.

BBC1 1998    Brint and Wallace wrote the theme tune and Wallace led a 9 piece studio band backing guest singers that included Kylie Minogue, Sinead O'Connor, Boy George and Suggs.

BBC 2 16 episodes.        Wallace wrote the annoyingly catchy music for the theme song "Life's A Big Banana Sandwich" and co-wrote all the incidental music with Brint. Memorable musical moments include "Drunk In Time" and "The Marquis Of Granby the Pub that Rides A Horse".

Brint and Wallace scored this hour long HBO TV special back in 1993. It won many awards including the 1994 Emmy for Best Comedy Show.

Originally made for BBC2 the 16 episodes, for which Brint and Wallace wrote all the music, has been shown extensively in the USA and Australia. Simon Wallace has worked with Jullian Clary on his live shows in the UK.

Wallace and Brint were the musical directors for this rather bizarre 1995 BBC 2 90 minute extravaganza which featured up and coming performers from 'The Fast Show' and 'Goodness Gracious Me' alongside Vick Reeves, Bob Mortimer and a host of stars from earlier eras, including Sandie Shaw and Ronnie Corbett. The late great Viv Stanshall was scheduled to make an appearance but had to cancel after missing every rehearsal due to being taken unavoidably drunk and the show was hosted by Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry only a few weeks before his well publicized excursion to Belgium.

BBC2 Screen 2 film.     Brint and Wallace scored this excellent satirical movie in 1995. It was produced in an incredibly short space of time. The period that elapsed between the scriptwriters first pitching the idea to the TV company and the first transmission was less than 7 weeks. The music for this 90 minute a film was written and recorded in three days.

'Raw Sex' the movie.... now a deep catalogue video classic featuring Simon Brint as Ken Bishop and Roland Rivron as his godson Dwayne . Jools Holland mimes expertly to Simon Wallace's tricky piano parts on the "Ken's Nice Twelve" song "You Need Love" or as it features in the film's pinkie rubber gloves commercial "You Need Gloves"(Brint , Wallace and Rivron).

Simon Wallace's work as an instrumentalist and composer has covered an extraordinarily diverse range of music, here are a few examples:

In 1986 the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra commissioned Simon Wallace to compose a symphony in five movements for His Majesty the King Of Thailand's 60th birthday celebrations. The piece was played in 1987 at public concerts in Bangkok and was performed for their Majesties the King and Queen in a special presentation broadcast live on all four Thai television channels simultaneously. 1n 1999 the BSO recorded the work and a CD was released through Thai embassies worldwide to mark His Majesty the King's 72nd birthday (in Thailand auspicious birthdays occur every 12 years). A performance in the presence of the Crown Prince was televised and another performance at the prestigious Thailand Cultural Centre was a sell out. A 2nd Symphony in honour of the royal 50th wedding anniversary was commissioned in 2000. Simon Wallace has also written scores for the BSO for concerts featuring two of Thailand's biggest pop stars Jay and Bird.

From 1990 to 1993 Simon was a member of the legendary Lindsay Kemp Dance Company which has been producing some of the most radical and challenging work in the field of physical theatre since the early 1970s. Music for Kemp's extravagant solo show "Onnagata" was based on a fusion of various western music and music from Japan. It was devised and performed by Simon Wallace and Japanese percussion maestro Joji Hirota. Onnagata played to sometimes ecstatic audiences in major venues all over Italy and Spain. The production then toured Venezuela, Colombia, Great Britain, Mexico, France and Japan.

UK Roots is a jazz group playing Simon's arrangements of traditional music from the British Isles. The band was started in 1996 with saxophonist Charlotte Glasson but has also featured saxophonists Tim Whitehead and Mark Ramsden. The style is straight down the line, hard hitting contemporary jazz but with the source material providing a slightly different resonance to the music while avoiding the trap of either raking over old standards or presenting brand new compositions in where the listener has no points of reference. The band has appeared (very successfully) at The Tron in Edinburgh, The Fleece in Suffolk and in London at The Spitz, The Barbican free stage and the Festival Hall Foyer.                       A CD is available: contact swmusic@compuserve.com

Simon has performed with groups of many genres in 24 countries across 4 continents. He has recorded with guitar hero Jeff Beck (CD "Jeff Beck Who Else?") and performed with guitar legend Hubert Sumlin. He has played keyboards and written arrangements for innumerable TV shows ...Monarch of the Glen, London's Burning, Shooting Stars and Manchild to name a few. He has appeard as a pianist on some great TV shows including 'The Tube' and 'The Big Breakfast'. He was recently working as piano coach (and hand double) for the Hollywood film "A Family Business" and has played on soundtracks for MGM and other major studios. He was musical director for the 1993 West End production and CD of 'Elegies For Angels Punks and Raging Queens'.Since 1995 he has been musical director for the annual star studded Groucho Club Gang Show.

Lord Lloyd Webber worked as Simon Wallace’s page turner for a 1995 Comic Relief TV item presided over by Dame Edna Everage. Simon's experiences later that evening with the five Spice Girls and Boyzone was the inspiration for his as yet unfinished essay “No-one Likes A Name Dropper”..

As a pianist, arranger and musical director Simon Wallace has worked with some great British singers including:

Simon Wallace was Ian Shaw's musical director from 1995 to 1997. He arranged most of the music for his 1996 'very big band' tour and led a quintet for several stints at Ronnie Scott's club (where they recorded the CD 'Echo Of A Song' ) In 1998 he directed concerts of his arrangements in and around Boston by Ian Shaw and The Kenny Hadleigh Big Band. Ian has long been a champion of the Landesman/ Wallace repertoire featuring their songs on his last four CDs, including the title track to 'In A New York Minute' his collaboration with New York jazz piano great Cedar Walton.

Simon has been musical director for Imelda Staunton's occasional cabaret performances since 1996. In 1999 they appeared for two weeks at 'The Firebird Cafe' in New York before seeing in the new millennium with a bizarre party on a beach in Kenya which featured Simon playing for Imelda, Ronnie Corbett and George Melly, on bill that included Victoria Wood and the cast of the show 'Oh Boy!'. Imelda's cabaret show includes a stunning version of the Landesman/Wallace song 'Waiter the Check'

Barb Jungr

Claire Martin

Simon's arrangements and piano playing are heavily featured on Barb's last two Linn Records CDs "Chanson The Space In-between" and her highly acclaimed album of Bob Dylan songs "Every Grain Of Sand". Barb often sings the Landesman/Wallace song 'Scars' in her live show.

Simon was musical director for award winning jazz singer Clare Martin for three years in the late '80s. Clare sang many of the songs he was then writing with his late songwriting partner the lyricist Roy Brentnal. He wrote many of the arrangements that Claire used on her early Linn CDs some of which are still a regular part of her live act.

Sarah Moule

Nicki Leighton-Thomas

Imelda Clabby
Clare Teal
and others

Simon performs live and has recorded 2 CDs with Al Nichol's jazz/R&B band 'Blue Harlem' featuring the wonderful Dublin diva Imelda Clabby. He regularly appears live with Candid Records artist Clare Teal. From time to time he crops up with a whole host of up and coming and already come up singers on the London scene... see listings for details.

In addition to his work with Simon Brint Simon Wallace has written many hours of music for film and television including:

1998 LWT Sunday night series 8 episodes staring the great Richard Wilson Simon Wallace scored this beautifully produced although perhaps not totally successful series. Gentle and sometimes imperceptible humor.

LWT 1999 Simon was overall musical director and arranger for this lavish show which featured as studio orchestra accompanying Bryn Terfil, Russel Watson and other luminaries from the world of light classical music.

This 16 part series of half hour documentaries was was produced by Malcolm Hossick and scored by Simon Wallace. It was shown by the BBC in the 1990s. The music for the Brontes, Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf and Thomas Hardy has attracted particularly favorable comment over the years.

music for children

A video of poems and pictures for children by Roy Gerard, set to music both as songs and accompanied narration (by Brian Cant). The video is probably long deleted but the books on which it was based are obtainable and highly recommended. The music for Rosie and the Rustlers should become available again soon.

During the 1980s Simon scored many hours of music for Children's TV and video including the Channel 4 series 'Hand in Hand' the Ladybird books 'Read with Me' Video series and the French for Children series 'Bonjour Mes Amis'