Career
Runswick started playing bass with leading United Kingdom jazz musicians in the mid-1960s, including Dick Morrissey and John Dankworth, with whom he would tour and compose for extensively for some 12 years. As a session musician he later branched out into more popular music, including appearing on the first The Alan Parsons Project recording and working with Elton John. He has also worked with the London Sinfonietta, Nash Ensemble and The King"s Singers, Pierre Boulez, Ornette Coleman, Simon Rattle and Sarah Vaughan.
Cleo Laine has recorded several of his compositions.
From 1995 to 2005 he was Head of Composition Faculty at Trinity College of Music (notable students include Angie Atmadjaja, Dai Fujikura, Harris Kittos, Nikos Veliotis and Reynaldo Young). As a composer he has written film and television scores, including the films Gullsandur (Golden Sands) (1985) and Number Surrender (1985), and the television series Brond (1987), with Bill Nelson, and Seekers (1992).
His major concert work, Maybe I Can Have an Everlasting Love for voice, computer-generated electronics and orchestra, premiered in 2005 at Blackheath Halls, London. As a record producer, Runswick has also produced recordings by Keith Tippett.
Runswick is the author of a standard textbook Rock, Jazz and People’s Arranging.