Martin Orford (born 10 June 1959, Bitterne,

Southampton Southampton () is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire, S ...

) is an English keyboard player best known as the founder of

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...

bands IQ and Jadis. He also worked with former

King Crimson King Crimson are a progressive rock band formed in 1968 in London, England. The band draws inspiration from a wide variety of music, incorporating elements of classical, jazz, folk, heavy metal, gamelan, industrial, electronic, experime ...

, U.K. and

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an ...

bassist

John Wetton John Kenneth Wetton (12 June 1949 – 31 January 2017) was an English musician, singer, and songwriter. Known for his dexterous bass playing and booming baritone voice, Wetton first gained fame in the early 1970s. Wetton was the singer and p ...

, and has released two solo albums, ''Classical Music and Popular Songs'' (2000) and ''The Old Road'' (2008). Orford appeared on two

Big Big Train Big Big Train are an English progressive rock band formed in Bournemouth in 1990. The current line-up includes band founder Gregory Spawton (bass, guitars and keyboards), along with Nick D'Virgilio (drums, guitars and keyboards) and Rikard Sj ...

albums, '' Goodbye to the Age of Steam'' and '' English Boy Wonders''. Orford won the "Best Keyboard Player" category at the Best of the Year Classic Rock Society Award in 2004. Orford's most recent solo album, ''The Old Road'' (GEPCD1037), was released in October 2008. The album features guest appearances from John Wetton, Nick D'Virgilio and Dave Meros (Spock's Beard), Steve Thorne, John Mitchell (Arena/Frost*/It Bites), Gary Chandler (Jadis), Dave Oberle (Gryphon), David Longdon (Big Big Train) and Andy Edwards (IQ/Frost*). Orford announced his retirement from the

music industry The music industry consists of the individuals and organizations that earn money by writing songs and musical compositions, creating and selling recorded music and sheet music, presenting concerts, as well as the organizations that aid, trai ...

in October 2008. However, at MelloFest 2009, he performed tracks from ''The Old Road'' as well as some IQ numbers.

References

External links

IQ official website

Giant Electric Pea
{{DEFAULTSORT:Orford, Martin 1959 births Living people English keyboardists Musicians from Southampton IQ (band) members