We are proud to announce our new column Inspiring People, highlighting individuals who inspire us either with their art, activism or social work. To kick off our first edition and celebrate the launch of the first Delia Arts Center in Gaza, we are featuring producer extraordinaire Brian Eno.
Brian Eno is a music producer, visual artist, writer, and social activist. Born in Suffolk, the United Kingdom, in 1948, he is the eldest of three sons. His father was a postman and watch repairer, and his mother was a Belgian citizen. In his teenage years, Eno started to show interest in music and arts and had no interest in working a conventional job. Eventually, he enrolled as an art student at the Winchester School of Fine Arts which he graduated with a diploma in 1969. While at Winchester, Eno saw a lecture from a then-unknown guitarist called Pete Thousand. That event deeply inspired Eno to pursue a music career even without formal music training.
A Music Genius
Eno`s career is as diverse as it gets, and it’s hard to find someone working in the industry today with a more prolific output. He started playing synthesizers in the glam rock band Roxy Music in 1971 and recorded two albums with them; Roxy Music (1971) and For Your Pleasure (1973). A couple of months after the tour of Four Your Pleasure ended, Eno quit the band, citing creative differences with Roxy Music`s lead singer Brian Ferry. Eno immediately embarked on a solo career and soon partnered with King Crimson`s guitarist Robert Fripp and the duo released No Pussyfooting. This experimental album made use of Frippertronics, a tape delay recording system that set the tone for many of the ambient work Eno subsequently became known for.
“Ambient music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular. It must be as ignorable as it is interesting.” Brian Eno
Eno released 20 albums as a solo artist and made music for over eight art installations and countless soundtracks over his 50-year career. Eno created original scores and produced music for films such as Dune, Trainspotting, and Married with the mob.
Activism
Eno engaged in social, political, and humanitarian causes throughout his life and was never afraid to take a stance against what he perceived was wrong. In 2017 he was appointed as the Stop the War Collision president, an anti-war group created to campaign against unjust wars and founded in 2011.
Since 1994 Brian Eno has been a friend and collaborator of David Wilson, the co-founder of the NGO War Child, an organization that aims to educate, protect and stand up for children caught up in war zones. A year later, Eno produced the album Help. Eno used his megastar influence to recruit a megastar roster of artists such as Paul McCartney, Blur, Oasis, Radiohead, and many others. The songs were recorded in a single day, and the proceedings of around 1.5 million pounds were used to help War Child in their efforts in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Eno has been very supportive of the situation in Palestine and together with Massive Attack and several other artists signed an open letter as a protest against night raids that happened in the Yabous Cultural Centre and in the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music (ESNCM). The letter addressed that the raid threatened to extinguish the cultural life of thousands of artists, students, and civilians. Furthermore, Eno, novelist Kamile Shamsie, poet Kae Tempest and rapper Talib Kwelli suffered a series of boycotts, blacklisting, and exclusion as a result of a 2019 parliamentary resolution that targeted critics of the Israeli conduct against Palestine.
His Influence
Brian Eno’s influence in modern music is unparalleled, and for some, he is the most influential artist since the Beatles. He changed how the contemporary musician composes, mixes, and behaves in the studio through his recording techniques.
The Delia Arts Foundation is proud to announce that Brian Eno will join us during our upcoming online event, Live for Gaza, a live stream event that celebrates the launch of the Delia Arts Center in Gaza. Stay tuned for more info soon.
