The Claude King Story

Claude is a South African music composer, living in Johannesburg.  Born in Cape Town, to a racially mixed family, as Claudeville Trevor Gombard, he uses the stage name of Claude King.  This name was given to him when he was a child performer. He decided to keep it, for the sake of continuity.

 

He is by South African terms a “Coloured”, since his father was German and his mother was of Indian & St Helenian descent. This made things rather difficult growing up under an Apartheid regime, when people of color were oppressed by that government.

 

But he did not let that get in his way in following his dream: he wanted to be educated, and  one of  the best musicians the world has ever seen.

 

Claude Gombard—CEO of  Claude King Media

At the tender age of 7 he started playing drums in his brother Andrew’s band. He excelled at this so much, that he began to make waves by performing with his brother’s band and eventually appeared in the local newspapers regularly, under the favorite title of The world’s youngest professional drummer.

 

At age 10 he was given his first serious gig, performing in a famous South African musical called African Jazz & Variety. Invariably, his performance always “stole the show”.

 

Always wanting to become better, greater at his art, he progressed into guitar-playing, singing and songwriting. In the latter he felt he had found his niche, since he was so good at it.

 

Today Claude is also an accomplished lead and backing singer, composer/lyricist/songwriter, plays the flute, saxophone, keyboards, bass guitar, lead & rhythm guitars, drums & percussion. On top of this, he qualifies to be called a computer expert, both in hard- & software. Finally, he is a highly capable video-editor on Adobe Premiere Pro.

 

Totally committed to his art and a hard worker, he thinks nothing of putting in a 25-hour straight shift when deadlines have to be met. He also personally does the sound-engineering in his seriously equipped recording studio. All of the above have combined to turn Claude into one of the most accomplished and capable Music Producers in South Africa, able to  compare to the best in the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contact details:

Claude King Media Productions

16 Southern-Klipriviersberg Road

The Hill,  2197,

Johannesburg,

Gauteng,

South Africa.

Phone: +2711-435-9940

Fax: +086-657-7720

E-mail:-  removeinfo@claudekingmedia.com

Email instructions: Please note this email address is incorrect as it is listed, to protect against spam attacks. If you need to email us, please remove the text “remove” from the email address.

Besides his excellent musical expertise, he has a solid grounding in business management, having studied a related diploma as well as having worked in the corporate business world for 13 years, the latter 7 of those as O & M Project-leader for a big South African company. During his commercial career, he always maintained his music career by moonlighting in the most serious way possible. This meant that most working days were an average of 16 hours. This he maintained for over a decade.

In 1993 he upgraded his (then) demo recording studio to international broadcast standard. 5 Years later, he officially registered his company, Claude King Media Productions. His combined experiences over the years have thus honed him well for the business of special music projects such as advertising jingles, TV, Film & Stage-show sound-tracks. He is well conversant with the Music Industry and has produced so many commercial albums & 7-singles, that he has lost count. Besides these, he has been involved with many, various music productions and collaborations through the years.

For a comprehensive discography of stuff Claude has been involved with, check out the link on this page “Projects we’ve done”

Since 1999, Claude, through his company Claude King Media Productions, has been specializing in the creation of African musicals, strictly for European consumption. With this he has achieved much success, 2 of his musicals having won the prestigious German Inthega Prize for Best Musical. He also expanded into video production, and his first broadcast project, his award-winning musical In the Ghetto, premiered on DSTV channel 115 on 16th December 2008.

 

In September 2008, Claude was requested by the South African Government to serve as a board-member of the National Arts Council of South Africa, which he did for 15 months.  He continues operating his digital recording studio on a daily basis, composing & producing new projects all the time.

This pic was featured in a local newspaper; Claude, participating in a national music contest.