Music for Film & Television
I was born into a musical household surrounded by music and musicians. When I was five my Dad, a singer-songwriter, brought home a small ship’s upright piano. I was immediately drawn to this and began playing and developing my first musical ideas. I worked my way through the piano grades and continued to compose and improvise but, with no clear idea of where my music could go, I decided to study zoology.
From there I went to work in natural history television production, firstly for the BBC, then for Icon Films. I travelled widely as a researcher and producer, capturing local music and sound wherever I went. I was learning the craft of filmmaking, but I had a nagging feeling that I was in the wrong job. This grew stronger as I began to work with film composers. Suddenly I could see where my compositions might have a home, and from that point I dedicated myself to scoring moving images.
I made the move into full-time composing in 1998. Since then I have scored hundreds of projects including documentaries on science Starchasers of Senegal, the arts Jack B, Yeats: The Man Who Painted Ireland, crime Drugsland: Going Country and natural history The Witness is a Whale. I have scored feature films such as Camera Trap and Born in China.
I thrive on collaboration and dialogue – these are key to my creative process. I have an incredible group of musicians I work with but I’m equally happy working with sound and electronica to create soundscapes and ethereal underscore.
I have a lifelong fascination with movement, reflected in a love of the martial arts and dance, and am currently working and performing with choreographers such as Kyra Norman Distant Dances: Going, Going… and Debbie Fionn Barr.
I work with world-class orchestras including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra of London, and have performed and recorded with musicians from around the world including, most recently, Baaba Maal. In 2022 an arrangement of music from the BBC series Nature’s Great Events was performed at the Earth Prom, Royal Albert Hall. This score was also performed live with Sir David Attenborough and the BBC Concert Orchestra.