Carl Doy

Carl William Doy, ONZM is a British born New Zealand pianist, composer and arranger. He was born in 1947 in Camberley, Surrey, England. One of New Zealand's most successful musicians, Carl is probably best known for his multi-platinum selling Piano By Candlelight albums.

Carl had his interest in music as early as he was six when he fell in love with his grandmother's piano. Although he did not have a formal music education at that time, he had a natural gift for playing by ear, which he then used to play popular songs of the day. It was only when he was in the Grammar School, his talents were identified by his music teachers who guided him to take the preliminary exams at the Royal College of Music. When he was eighteen he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music and studied piano, organ and composition there for two years.

In 1967, having achieved highest grades for theory in music, he joined the P&O Arcadia cruise ship as its resident pianist. He spent the next few years playing between the cruise ship job and in UK clubs as well. In 1971, he was appointed the Musical Director aboard the Ocean Monarch cruise ship, which was one of the pioneers to have a full entertainment unit aboard.

After few years of work on cruise ships at the sea, Carl decided to settle down to pursue his musical career in a different domain. That resulted Carl moving to New Zealand in 1973 with wife Kathy. He started work for Television New Zealand, where he got himself established quickly as a session pianist and arranger. That was the beginning of his career as a very popular writer and arranger of music for thousands of radio and television programs over the next decade or so. The most significant work at that time was the Royal Variety Performance for HRH Queen Elizabeth II. He also arranged the Pope's Mass, which involved writing for two orchestras and a large voice choir. He had the opportunity to play and tour with a variety of visiting artists such as Shirley Bassey and The Seekers.

His immense success in popular commercial music scene started in late 80s with the introduction of the best selling 'Piano by Candlelight' sequel. Meeting with Murray Thom, ex head of CBS records was a big breakthrough for Carl and they decided to record an album with popular music/songs in CD format. This was beginning of the ever popular Piano By Candlelight series, which made its entry to the NZ charts at number one in its very first week Page text..

Eight more albums were recorded over the next twelve years under the same series. The second CD named Piano By Candlelight 2 created a record in 1989 for most copies sold in New Zealand of a locally recorded album.

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa sang his arrangement of E te Tarakihi from Gisborne in the first live broadcast of the new millennium, to a worldwide television audience of over a hundred million people.

...
Wikipedia