Jan Randall

Canadian composer Jan Randall is a pianist who played entirely by ear from childhood, started working in blues and pop music bands while still in high school, and after receiving formal classical and jazz training as a composer and arranger went on to spend a decade in theatre before moving on to make a career of composing sound tracks for broadcast.

Composer
Commissioned works by Randall include a ballet for the National Ice Theatre of Canada, A Midsummer Night’s Ice Dream (1992) which won a sterling award for Outstanding Fringe Experience. This was followed by Tangled Ice Webs (1998) and Poetry in Motion (2006). He is credited as a composer for 1996 World Figure Skating Championships, and composer and music director for the 2001 IAAF World Championships in Athletics. The cast included the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, seven thousand dancers, a dozen feature acts, and a one thousand voice choir. Event was broadcast live to over four billion people worldwide.

In 1985 he built Randall's Recordings, a recording studio that specializes in production of music for film and television. SOCAN, the Canadian performing rights society, has over 700 broadcast productions with credits of his original music from this facility. In 1998 he won a Rosie award for Best Composer/Musical Score for the NFB production "Lost Over Burma" which featured narration by Christopher Plummer. He composed music for many other documentaries for the NFB, a large body of educational programs for ACCESS Television, and music to underscore a decade of award winning productions for Karvonen Films and The Discovery Channel.

Comedy Improvisation and Song Writing
Jan Randall has been Music Director, Pianist, Song Composer and Musical Improvisor for many theatrical comedy troups, most notably in Edmonton, Toronto and Santa Monica with The Second City, during which time Randall appeared on SCTV, and collaborated with Mike Myers, Catherine O'Hara, Ron James, Richard Kind, and Ryan Stiles. He later performed with Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie, Rapid Fire Theatre and Theatresports. He was also the founding music director for the live improvised soap opera Die-Nasty in which he continues to perform with every Monday night at the Varscona Theatre in Edmonton and as part of the Edmonton International Fringe Festival. He performed with them in London England in 2009 and played piano continuously for 50 straight hours as part of an improvisation marathon produced by The Sticking Place. He repeated this the following year at Hoxton Hall with the same group. In 2008 he released a solo CD of original songs "Good Fair World". Currently he is writing and performing original comedy songs for CBC Radio's The Irrelevant Show (2011-present) with singers Jocelyn Ahlf and Martin Murphy.

Performer
Jan Randall has performed live with Bo Diddley, Otis Rush, Amos Garrett, Gaye Delorme, Dave Babcock, Sha Na Na, Spencer Davis, Sam Lay (drummer for Paul Butterfield and Howlin' Wolf) and Gary U.S. Bonds. Jan Randall has been music director for the annual Banff World Television Festival (1995-2007) and performed there with many stars including John Cleese, Bob Newhart, Dame Edna Everage, Martin Short, Steve Allen and Kelsey Grammer. Currently he is performing original comedy songs cowritten with singer Jocelyn Ahlf and CBC radio host/producer Peter Brown for the CBC radio series "The Irrelevant Show." He also has a cover band "Jettstar" and a duelling piano show Randall & Day with Matt Day.

Sundown Recorders
In 1992, Randall donated many audio tapes that had come into his possession of Edmonton-based Sundown Recorders, originally owned by Wes Dakus, and which existed from 1972 to 1987, to the Provincial Archives of Alberta. Included in the donated material were recordings by Hoyt Axton, Bobby Curtola, Gaye Delorme, Gary Fjellgaard, Fosterchild and Hammersmith.

Personal life
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1952. His first piano teacher was his mother Laura Randall, who played classical and jazz and taught the neighborhood children. His family moved to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, in 1961, and they became Canadian citizens in 1967.

Jan married Ina Dykstra in 2011. Ina has been teaching piano in St. Albert, Alberta since 1969.

Jan Randall's community volunteer work includes serving as treasurer for the Inglewood Community League from 1993-1994, and as treasurer for the Strathcona Housing Coop from 2008-2009. He also served on the board of the Guild of Canadian Film Composers from 2002-2009.

In 2004 Jan Randall received a letter from a cousin of folk singer Arlo Guthrie that contained information revealing they all shared a great-great grandfather Raphael Stukelman. Later that year he attended a cousins reunion in San Francisco and they all met with Arlo backstage a concert he gave there.

In 2006 Jan Randall began work as a radio host on CKUA radio with the Weekend Breakfast show which he produced until 2009.

Education
Jan Randall studied piano privately with Vic Lillo, Ted Moses, Adrian Chornwal, and Charlie Austen. He received a Bachelor of Music in 1975 majoring in theory and composition from the University of Alberta. There he studied composition, orchestration and conducting with Malcolm Forsyth and Violet Archer. He also studied classical piano there with Sandra Munn and Elizabeth Ralston.

Discography

 * Good Fair World (2008)

Television Soundtracks

 * Lost Over Burma (National Film Board of Canada/ news documentary)
 * Wilderness Journeys (Discovery Channel/nature series),
 * Geek TV (ACCESS/comedy series)
 * Naked Frailties (drama/feature film)
 * Purple Gas (comedy/ feature film)