Gabriel Prokofiev
Gabriel Prokofiev was born in London to a Russian father and English mother and studied composition at both Birmingham and York universities. His first musical experiences were writing pop-songs and playing in a band aged 10, and for the last eight years he has been producing dance, electro & hip-hop music under a variety of different guises.
In 2003 he returned to his classical roots composing a critically acclaimed String Quartet for the Elysian Quartet ("Stunning" - DJ Magazine, "defies comparison" - Daily Telegraph) which he released on his own independent label Nonclassical, complete with remixes. He has also composed a successful 2nd String Quartet for The Elysian Quartet, a collection of piano pieces for Russian virtuoso Pianist GeNIA, and a groundbreaking Concerto for Turntables & Orchestra which was premiered by DJ Yoda & the Heritage Orchestra at The Scala in Kings Cross. It was recently performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra with Beni G to a packed Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. Other recent works include a piece for percussionist Joby Burgess using two Fanta Bottles and electronics, and a recently premiered piece for solo violin & solo dancer for the Rambert Dance Company. Gabriel had his conducting debut with his Concerto for 'dancing' Viola, String Orchestra, Trombones & Percussion, premiered in the Paradiso, Amsterdam in June 2008. 
He also runs a monthly 'classical' club-night NONCLASSICAL at The Macbeth, Hoxton, where he is the resident DJ. For more information on Nonclassical you can visit www.nonclassical.co.uk and www.myspace.com/nonclassicalmusic
Here's what Gabriel has been listening to...
Being a composer, I often don't listen to CDs or Records at home as I'm trying to keep my ears clear and not be too influenced by other music, or just want to give my ears a break after a days work at the studio. But I often flick through quite a lot of CDs in an attempt to find good tracks for DJing at the Nonclassical club-night that I run.
Various:
Comptines Et Berceuses Du Baobab (Didier Jeunesse)
I've got a two and a half year old daughter and a 7 month old son. So more often than not it's children's music playing in our flat. Sadly I've had very little luck finding any good quality new music for children. But one French label Didier Jeunesse has released a series of CD/books with childrens' songs from different continents. The African CD is very strong; catchy and often non-diatonic childrens songs with quite complex rhythmes; I wish I'd grown up with them. The two tradtitional songs from Rwanda are indespensible, and when I'm wondering what melody has crept into my head one morning it's often from that CD.
Raymond Scott: Manhattan Research, Inc. (Basta)
Raymond Scott actually wrote some really fun Synthesizer music for children in the 1960s (it sounds like a predecesor to ENO or Kraftwerk). 2008 marks his 100th birthday, and I can't get over how little known and under-appreciated he still is; when he really was the pioneer of synthesizer and sequenced music. This album is a compilation of jingles, short pieces, and adverts from the 50s-70s. He pretty much invented the drum machine and sequencer back in the 1950s, demonstrated on the super-seminal track "The Rhythm Modulator" (acid house from the 1960s, sounding better than anything from the 90s!)
Gilius van Bergeijk: Volume 1 (X-Or)
I bought this CD for the legendary piece: "Symphony of a Thousand" in which Gilius sampled the first note of one thousand different classical LPs and then spliced them all together. It does sound a bit like an experiment at first, but somehow seems to start working musically as it goes on. Generally I think there's been too much emphasis on 'conceptual' music and art over the last few decades, but I can't deny that it's interesting to hear what some of these ideas sound like.
Errorsmith: Errorsmith 2 (Errorsmith)
This is a CD I've recently found really useful for my DJ-sets. It's not really a sit-down-and-listen CD, but rather a DJ-tool. It's just a collection of electronic beats, all created with the same warped & elasticated drum sounds, but it works extremely well when mixed with other CDs. Stockhausen's Kontakte takes on a whole new syncopated angle when Errorsmith is inter-jected and sporadically mixed with it!