About John Harle
John Crofton Harle OBE FRSA FGS FCL (born 20 September 1956) is an English saxophonist, composer, record producer, conductor and educator. He is an Ivor Novello Award winner, has been the recipient of two Royal Television Society awards and has contributed directly and indirectly to a number of charting songs and albums. Harle served as artistic advisor to Sir Paul McCartney for six years, and has also collaborated with Elvis Costello, Marc Almond, Herbie Hancock, Michael Nyman, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, Stanley Myers and Elmer Bernstein. In May 1998, he was the castaway on BBC Radio 4's long- running Desert Island Discs programme. In October 2020, Harle released The John Harle Collection - a 20 Album retrospective of his career as composer and saxophonist. All proceeds from the collection were donated to the Help Musicians Coronavirus Appeal. He is currently Director of The Guildhall Bauhaus and Professor of Music & Interdisciplinary Practice at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London. He was awarded the OBE in the King’s New Year Honours List in 2025 for services to music, and is an FRSA (Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.) At the Royal Military School of Music at Kneller Hall, he won the Cousins Memorial Medal for the best Army Instrumentalist in 1975. He was awarded a Foundation Scholarship to enter the Royal College of Music in London to study the saxophone in 1977. He won the Dannreuter Concerto Competition in 1978, and in 1979 he was the first student in the history of the Royal College to graduate with a mark of 100%. Postgraduate studies were as a French Government Music Scholar in Paris with Daniel Deffayet, during which he won the 1984 AMCOM Award of The American Concert Artists Guild in New York.
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