Dominique Le Gendre is the composer, music producer and co-founder/artistic director of StrongBack Productions. 

Dominique Le Gendre is the composer, music producer and co-founder/artistic director of StrongBack Productions.  Born and brought up in Trinidad and Tobago, Dominique was actively involved in Trinidad’s cultural life from an early age: she played guitar and cuatro for the church choir, composed songs for the annual school calypso competition, assisted  on theatre productions and worked as a runner for Trinidad’s pioneering  production company Banyan Productions. She trained as a classical guitarist in Paris, France with Ramon de Herrerra while pursuing parallel studies in Harmony, Music Analysis and Musicology at the Sorbonne.

A Londoner for 35 years, she is a former Associate Artist of the Royal Opera House and Manning Camerata. She has composed music prolifically for  chamber music ensembles, opera,  dance, art installations with photographer Ingrid Pollard, radio drama for BBC radio 3 and 4, independent films and television including Waris Hussain’s Sixth Happiness and  Mike Hodges’ The Healer. Dominique’s music features in award-winning audio and film productions: Arkangel Complete Shakespeare directed by Clive Brill; Frances-Ann Solomon’s radio adaptation of Grace Nicholls’ poem  I Is a Long-Memoried Woman and poet Jackie Kay’s Adoption Papers; the film Dreams in Transit by Karen Martinez-Lambert and the critically acclaimed Shakespeare’s Globe production of Richard II directed by Adjoa Andoh and Lynette Linton. For theatre, Dominique has composed incidental music for Theatre of Black Women, Women’s Theatre Group, Avon Touring,  Theatre Centre, Double Exposure Theatre company, Wild Iris, Talawa Theatre, London Bubble, Shakespeare’s Globe and Soho Theatre among others.  Her chamber music and music-theatre works have been performed and recorded by international soloists and ensembles. She is currently developing a new musical with writer/director Lakesha Arie-Angelo.

 

In 2012,  with Melanie Abrahams, she co-produced and co-curated  London is the Place for Me,  celebrating Trinidad and Tobago’s  50^th Anniversary of independence at the Tricycle Theatre.