Randall Giles, Biography

Randall Giles was born in Oregon City Oregon in 1950. His first studies in composition were with Mark DeVoto at Reed College, after which he took his undergraduate degree at the University of York while studying with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies in London. He then taught in the United Kingdom for two years, after which he returned to the United States to further his studies and to teach. Enjoying the enrichment brought by travel, he went to Liberia in West Africa with the United States Peace Corps to help develop a music curriculum based on Liberian indigenous music for the Ministry of Education there. This was followed by a year with the Alaska State Council on the Arts, enthusing about music and recording the music of four small rural villages on an Artists in the Schools residency. After this experience, he returned to the United Kingdom to study with Sir Harrison Birtwistle and headed the music Department at Queen's College, London. He subsequently took his Master's Degree at Northwestern University studying with Alan Stout, after which he taught on the music faculties of Lewis and Clark, Marylhurst and Linfield colleges in Oregon.

In 1991, he traveled to Madras (now Chennai), South India, where he was a visiting Scholar at Saint George's School, while beginning the writing of his Saint John Passion. That work was presented for his dissertation at the University of California, San Diego, from whence Giles received a Doctor of Philosophy in Music degree in 1992. In 1993-1994, he returned to south Asia as a volunteer as a small school in Nepal, and to continue his study of liturgy and inculturation in the churches of South Asia. In 1999, he was invited to serve the Church of South India’s Madras Diocese, to do parish-based work in music, and to work towards the founding of a centre for Indian Christianity and the Arts. He is currently living in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, as Director of the Department of Music and Liturgy for the Church of South India’s Madras Diocese, teaching privately, doing voice-overs for the Indian film industry, and is now the Director of the Centre. He enjoys singing, playing the violin and piano and is a very amateur visual artist.

For the Episcopal Church’s’ department of Anglican and Global Relations, he has been involved in a project to record music from various provinces of the Anglican Communion. Titled “Throughout All the World’ the on-going series is exploring little known music from places such as south India where Giles is living, but also from the Church of Melanesia (the Solomon Islands) and from wherever interesting but little known “Anglican” music can be found.

As a composer, Giles has worked in many styles and idioms including chamber and orchestral music, vocal and choral music, and music for the theatre and television. He has received commissions from a wide variety of organizations and individuals both in Europe, North America and Asia (see complete works at the Musical Works page on this site). He continues to write music and welcomes inquiries about the possibility of writing new work for churches, musical organizations and individuals.