About
James Hannigan is a BAFTA Award-winning composer and music producer with credits spanning AAA games, television, audio drama and other media. An International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) and Webby People’s Voice Award winner, with five additional BAFTA nominations, his work in games includes entries in franchises such as Harry Potter, Dead Space, RuneScape, Warhammer, Evil Genius, FIFA, F1, Transformers, Theme Park, The Lord of the Rings, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Art Academy and Command & Conquer.
His more recent work in full-cast audio drama and audiobooks features major productions such as The Sandman (Amazon/Audible’s best-selling Original to date), DC’s Kingdom Come, Discworld, Harry Potter and the Audie Award-winning Alien series. | LISTEN
Hannigan’s music – including the parodic Red Alert 3 Theme: Soviet March – has been streamed hundreds of millions of times. His work has been performed in concerts around the world, and he has recorded with ensembles including the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Skywalker Symphony Orchestra at Abbey Road, AIR and Skywalker Sound. His scores have featured solo performances from Regé-Jean Page (for The Sandman: The Song of Orpheus), alongside musicians such as Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay, Tony Hinnigan (Titanic, Braveheart), Miranda Keys, Pete Lockett and Miriam Stockley (Adiemus). | NEWS
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His television work includes music for Primeval (BBC America), while music from his back catalogue has also been featured across a wide range of shows, including Top Gear, The Grand Tour, Emily in Paris and Saturday Night Live, among many others.
An innovator in interactive music, Hannigan began his career as EA Europe’s in-house composer in the mid-1990s before transitioning to freelance work based at Pinewood Studios in West London. His early credits include Theme Park World (BAFTA Award, 2000), Evil Genius (BAFTA nomination, 2005) and Republic: The Revolution (BAFTA nomination, 2004), designed by Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind.
Among his earlier projects are the Wing Commander spin-offs Freelancer and Privateer 2: The Darkening (with Christopher Walken and John Hurt), theWarhammer titles Space Hulk and Shadow of the Horned Rat, several EA Sports titles – along with projects such as Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (VG; BAFTA nomination, 2010; IFMCA Award, 2010), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Dead Space 3, Grand Prix 4, Brute Force, Cutthroat Island, Conquest: Frontier Wars, Art Academy and Flight of the Amazon Queen, with selected tracks also appearing more recently in titles such as Terraria and Nintendo’sSuper Smash Bros. As a sound designer, his film credits include the Golden Reel-nominated Lost in Space, with further music credits including BBC Radio 4 adaptations of Neverwhere, Stardust and Good Omens.
A conference founder and occasional writer, he has appeared on the cover of DEVELOP magazine, written for Classic FM and Pixel Addict, and contributed to academic works such as Tim Summers’ Understanding Video Game Music (Cambridge University Press, 2016). He is co-founder of Screen Art Connect events, formerly held at London’s Southbank Centre in partnership with PlayStation, BAFTA, the Ivors Academy, PRS for Music, Classic FM, Music Week and Electronic Arts, and writes on topics ranging from vintage arcade machines to the implications of AI music.
A fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a longstanding BAFTA member, Hannigan has been featured in BAFTA’s Conversations with Composers series held at the Royal Albert Hall, interviewed by BBC Radio, Classic FM, Sky TV, IGN, Forbes and MusicRadar, and has spoken at institutions and events including the Royal College of Music, the School of Sound, EIGF, Musicworks, Ludomusicology and the DEVELOP Conference.
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