Robert (Bob) Buckley composer / arranger

Robert Buckley was born in Brighton, England. Attracted by the raw nature of British Columbia and the culture of Europe, he now spends half the year in Vancouver and the other half in Europe. He took up the piano at the age of ten and began composing almost immediately. He soon took up the clarinet, saxophone, and flute and began writing for the school orchestra, concert band and jazz band. He studied composition, conducting and arranging at the University of Washington, the University of British Columbia, and privately with Hubert Klyne Headley.

Upon leaving university Robert started working professionally and appeared weekly on the television series “Let’s Go” as keyboardist, saxophonist and arranger. In his quest to combine rock, jazz and symphonic music he formed the band Spring and performed the original work “Song Cycle” with the Vancouver and Edmonton Symphonies. Also, with Spring he had his first top ten single. Then, as a member the rock bands Straight Lines and Body Electric he released five albums containing several top-ten singles, and a gold record with the number one single "Letting Go." He worked as a composer, arranger, performer, producer and conductor for records, theme music for television series and specials, commercials, audio-visuals, dance, musicals, symphonic works and films. He composed the music for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria, B.C. and music for the Calgary Olympics. In 1986 he composed "This Is My Home" for the Canada Pavilion at Expo '86, which has been performed at every Canada Day since, and has become akin to a second Canadian national anthem. He has written string arrangements for Bryan Adams, Celine Dion, Our Lady Peace, Simple Plan, Aerosmith, and others. He composed two musicals for the Charlottetown Festival, one of which ran for ten years. He has scored hundreds of television programs, including the award winning computer animated series Reboot, Transformers, and Shadow Raiders; and most recently the computer-animated movies Casper's Haunted Christmas and Scary Godmother 1 and 2. Robert is currently working on a new Disney series called Dragon Booster, a musical in England called Tinsel with novelist Michelle Magorian, a physical theatre show in Vancouver called The Bridge with Axis Theatre, and a live show in Holland called Café Diablo.