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INTRODUCTION

Simon Vance (born December 16, 1955) is a British actor and award winning audiobook narrator. In his 30 year career as a narrator, he has recorded more than 700 audiobooks, winning awards and plaudits across the board - including six prestigious Audie Awards (known as "Oscars" in the audiobook industry) from the Audio Publishers Association.

EARLY LIFE and EDUCATION

Simon Vance was born in Brighton, Sussex, into a medical family (his father was a doctor and mother a nurse). He was educated at Brighton College Junior School and Varndean Grammar School. Between the ages of 8 and 15, his parents sent him to classes at the Brighton School of Music and Drama. Simon attended Leeds University, graduating with an honors degree in Economics in 1979. While at university, he was involved in the student TV and Film Society - Network 4, where for one year, he was Executive Producer for the television productions.

RADIO CAREER and FIRST NARRATIONS

After graduating and driving a West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive bus for a year, Vance returned home where he joined the production team at BBC Radio Brighton (now Radio Sussex). In 1983, he moved to London, England, and became a newsreader/announcer for BBC Radio 4. While in London, he discovered the Royal National Institute for the Blind's Talking Book service. Simon volunteered  in the RNIB's studios for over the next eight years he would record many audiobooks in the studio's for the blind and parcially sighted. This served as a suitable apprenticeship for his future narration experiences. In 1992, Vance left the BBC and England, moving to California, USA.

THE NEW WORLD

While embarking on an acting career, Vance also decided to use his abilities as an audiobook narrator to subsidize his stage and screen career. In 1993, he sent a demo tape to Blackstone Audiobooks. They hired him right away, recording under the name Robert Whitfield. A few years later, Books on Tape (now owned by Random House) also hired him to record as Richard Matthews. In the early 2000s he transitioned to using his real name for recordings. Over the past 10 years, Simon Vance has recorded books for HarperAudio, Hachette Audio, Penguin, Macmillan Audio, Random House Audio, and many other audiobook publishers. Vance has also been successful as a stage and screen actor in the San Francisco Bay area, winning several local awards for his theatre work such as the Dean Goodman Choice Award. In television, Vance co-starred in the CBS TV series Nash Bridges and the ABC TV series The Evidence.

AWARDS and ACCOLADES

Since 1999, Vance has been nominated 34 times for an Audie Award, winning 6 times. AudioFile Magazine has presented him with 45 Earphone Awards for Excellence. In 2010, AudioFile Magazine named him a Golden Voice. (others included Jim Dale, Derek Jacobi, Garrison Keeler and Martin Jarvis).

Author Neil Gaiman described Vance as "...the gold-standard of narrators... Orson Scott Card has said of David Copperfield: For me, the right age to read Copperfield was now, and the right way to read it was with Simon Vance's impeccable voice in my ear. Hilary Mantel, author of Bring Up The Bodies said, As if by telepathy, he has preserved the rhythm of the text as I heard it when I wrote it. No author could hope for a more faithful and imaginative audio version.

NOTABLE RECORDINGS


 * The Millennium Series by Stieg Larsson (including Audie Award winner The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest)
 * The Aubrey Maturin Series by Patrick O'Brien (21 novels beginning with Master and Commander)
 * A Dance To The Music of Time by Anthony Powell (12 book cycle)
 * "Dune" by Frank Herbert (six book series - the first, a multi-voice production and winner of an Audie Award)
 * "The King's Speechby Mark Logue and Peter Conradi (winner of an Audie Award for Best Solo Narration-Male 2012'')
 * The Barsetshire Series and The Palliser Series by Anthony Trollope (both six novel collections)

REFERENCES

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