JAMES HANNIGAN – Website of the BAFTA, IFMCA & WEBBY Award Winning Composer

“… James Hannigan’s music makes The Sandman totally immersive.” – THE SUNDAY TIMES

“The most powerful weapon is the music.” – L.A. TIMES

“…a wonderful cinematic score” – AUDIOFILE MAGAZINE

“An astonishing composer…” – NEIL GAIMAN

“the best music in the series..” – MOVIE MUSIC UK, HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX (VG)

“[Evil Genius] expertly captures the ‘60s spy-movie aesthetic” – GAME INFORMER

” a superb score by composer James Hannigan — nothing more, nothing less.” – MULTIVERSITY COMICS

“Seeing a horde of monsters fast approaching, with pointy limbs flailing, as .. horns and violins rise to cacophony, is guaranteed to get the heart pumping.” – TIME

“A score which combines musicality with wit … complementing the sound perfectly.” – BAFTA

“10/10. The music in Republic is amazing. It is possibly the greatest and most appropriate music in any game ever. The sweeping eastern classical music fits the game so well it is untrue.” – GAME FAQS

“Returning composer James Hannigan [has] brought this new game to life without losing step with the original. The music that Hannigan brings to life shows that he has not missed a beat. My only wish was that there were more..” – GAMING TREND

“The formidable music, sometimes terrifying, sometimes tender, is by the composer James Hannigan, noted for his contributions to screen and video games” – THE TIMES

“…some of the most viscerally satisfying bombast ever produced. Starting with “The Inquisitorial Squad”, Hannigan never makes the mistake of fashioning directionless sound and fury.” – GGM

“The soundtrack is particularly fantastic” – IGN

“…a cohesive musical story from start to finish.” – FORBES

“In games of this genre, it’s common for me to mute the music and listen to something other than the OST. In Evil Genius 2, that most certainly wasn’t the case… the music truly excels” – RAPID REVIEWS

“The music.. is amazing. James Hannigan returns and he expands the original soundtrack with gusto… Brilliant Music.” – GAMEWATCHER

James Hannigan is a BAFTA award-winning composer with a career spanning multiple entertainment industries, from multimillion-selling video games and television to groundbreaking audio drama. His credits include entries in the Harry Potter, Dead Space, Evil Genius, RuneScape, Transformers, Warhammer, The Lord of the Rings, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Theme Park, EA Sports, and Command and Conquer video game series; full-cast audio adaptations including the NY Times #1 bestselling The Sandman and the Alien series, along with the Discworld and Harry Potter audiobooks. His themes, such as the parodic "Soviet March," have been streamed hundreds of millions of times across digital platforms, and among his other awards are a Webby People's Choice Award for The Sandman Act II (featuring The Song of Orpheus performed by Regé-Jean Page) and an International Film Music Critics Association Award for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince VG (also BAFTA award-nominated, 2010). Hannigan's scores have been BAFTA-nominated five times.

An occasional BBC radio interviewee, Comic Con and conference panelist, Hannigan has in earlier years co-founded popular talk events and conferences, including Screen Music Connect and Game Music Connect at the Southbank Center in London, partnering with BAFTA, Classic FM, Sony PlayStation, Music Week and The Ivors Academy, among others.

Represented by COOL MUSIC in London, Hannigan has recorded with the The Philharmonia Orchestra, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, The Skywalker Symphony Orchestra, The Budapest Film Orchestra, The Chamber Orchestra of London (COOL) and The Slovak Symphony Orchestra, recording at studios including Abbey Road, Air-Lyndhurst and Skywalker Ranch. He has been featured in BAFTA’s Conversations with Composers held at the Royal Albert Hall, appeared on the cover of DEVELOP magazine, written articles for Classic FM and other outlets, and has been a guest speaker at several universities and colleges, including the Royal College of Music. His music has been performed in concerts such as Video Games Live and RuneFest.

Hannigan's past projects also include entries in the Space Hulk, F1, FIFA, Grand Prix game series; Primeval (BBC America/ITV), Red Alert 3, Dead Space 3, Nintendo's Art Academy (also heard in the Super Smash Bros. series), Reign of Fire, Catwoman, the pioneering interactive score of Republic: The Revolution (designed by Google DeepMind co-founder, Demis Hassabis; BAFTA Award Nomination, Original Music, 2003), Freelancer, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Call of Antia, Evil Genius (BAFTA Award Nomination, Original Music, 2004), Evil Genius 2 (2022), Steelrising (2022), Terraria: Otherworld, Command and Conquer 4, Conquest, Brute Force, The Darkening (with Christopher Walken, Clive Owen and John Hurt), Transformers Universe, Theme Park World (aka Sim Theme Park; BAFTA Award, 2000), FA Premier League (BAFTA Nomination, 2000), Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat, RuneScape: The Orchestral Collection, the hugely popular Harry Potter audiobooks read by Stephen Fry, BBC R4 adaptations of Good Omens and Neverwhere, Lost in Space (sound design; Golden Reel Nomination), and much more.

Music from Hannigan’s back catalogue can be heard in numerous TV productions, commercials and trailers - ranging recently from Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts, Top Gear and The Grand Tour to Floor is Lava, SpongeBob SquarePants, Disney shorts, and The World According to Jeff Goldblum. His music has also accompanied various experiences, installations, immersive experiences and dance routines, from the Dream Portal at NY Comic Con to Dance Moms.

biography