01. Gaynor Colbourn
- Role:
- Founder
In October 1980, Olympic rider Jennie Loriston Clarke met Gaynor Colbourn who, at the age of 17, was already an established classical and session musician, composer and multi-instrumentalist in the recording and TV/film industry. Their first collaboration was a demonstration of dressage to music at Wellington Riding in Heckfield, UK, in which Colbourn played keyboards live in the arena to match every single movement of Loriston-Clarke riding Dutch Courage and Benjamin Bunny. The demonstration also featured a pas de deux with Jeremy Michaels and Neirede Goodman, the co-owner of Wellington Riding who rode Wellington Oliver. This event marked the beginnings of dressage to music and Colbourn's trademark style of playing keyboards live in order to match every movement, tempo, change and nuance, wherefore she was awarded the Merle Park Rose Bowl Award at the Goodwood International Dressage Festival. Freestyle to Music was officially recognised by British Dressage in 1980 and the FEI after its official debut at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and has since grown. Not only is it compulsory in equestrian Olympic competitions, but it has spread beyond the grand prix circuit to freestyle classes at local riding club competitions around the world and at all levels. As a multi-instrumentalist, for competition music, Gaynor plays and records all instruments from scratch, making her music both unique and accurate to every nuance and dynamic. Her music is always beautiful, so scores highly for artistic and music content. Gaynor Colbourn, who rides and trains to Grand Prix level, remains the only person to have performed live music alongside the horses, which allowed her to tailor music to each individual rider and horse. She continues to lead clinics and demonstrations including performances by top international and Olympic riders, but creates music for horses and riders at all levels, which have won freestyle classes more than 11,522 times with Colbourn's music. When playing in concert, or Dressage to Music Demos, Gaynor has used KORG Keyboards for over 30 years.
