biography
James Hannigan is a BAFTA Award-winning composer, with credits spanning multi-million-selling video games, film, television and audio drama. Noted for his lyrical and emotive scores, his credits include entries in some of the world’s best-known game franchises, among them the Harry Potter, Dead Space, Evil Genius, RuneScape, Warhammer, FIFA, F1, Transformers and Command & Conquer series, as well as several Wing Commander spin-offs and titles in The Lord of the Rings, Theme Park, Art Academy and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs series.
In bestselling audio drama, where in recent years he has seen a rise to prominence, his work includes the full-cast New York Times #1 bestseller The Sandman (DC), the Audie Award-winning Alien series, the forthcoming Superman epic, Kingdom Come (DC), themes for Terry Pratchett’s Discworld and the Stephen Fry-read Harry Potter audiobooks.
Among Hannigan’s awards are a Webby People’s Choice Award for The Sandman: Act II (featuring James McAvoy and Michael Sheen), and an IFMCA Award for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (EA/WB) - which also earned a BAFTA nomination for Original Music in 2010. Across his career, his scores have attracted four additional BAFTA nominations, and his themes – such as the parodic cult favourite Soviet March from Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 – have been streamed hundreds of millions of times worldwide. Many of his scores have been recorded with world-class orchestras, including The Philharmonia, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Skywalker Symphony Orchestra - at legendary studios such as Abbey Road, Air-Lyndhurst and Skywalker Ranch.
His many credits include Primeval (ITV/BBC America), Reign of Fire, Catwoman, titles in the EA Sports, Grand Prix and Space Hulk series, Nintendo’s Art Academy (later featured in Super Smash Bros.); Terraria: Otherworld, Red Alert 3 (with Tim Curry and J.K. Simmons); Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Parts 1 & 2, Dead Space 3, Command & Conquer 4, Call of Antia, and Transformers Universe. Recent work includes the romantic hybrid score of Steelrising, Evil Genius 2, and The Sandman Act III – featuring the Song of Orpheus beautifully performed by Regé-Jean Page.
Tracks from Hannigan's catalogue are often heard in TV series, ranging from Top Gear and The Grand Tour to Disney shorts, Emily in Paris, Saturday Night Live, SpongeBob SquarePants, The World According to Jeff Goldblum, Dance Moms, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Tour of Houses and Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts - to name just a few.
An occasional speaker and panelist at Comic-Con and other events, Hannigan has been interviewed by BBC Radio, Classic FM, Sky TV, IGN, Forbes and MusicRadar, and has talked at institutions such as The Royal College of Music, The School of Sound, EIGF, Musicworks, Ludomusicology and the DEVELOP Conference - and, in 2012, was a subject of BAFTA’s Conversations with Composers series at the Royal Albert Hall.
Hannigan is founder of the sold-out Game Music Connect and Screen Music Connect conference series - partnered with Playstation, BAFTA and the Ivors Academy, PRS For Music and others - hosted at London’s Southbank Centre between 2013 and 2019. He has also written articles for outlets including Classic FM, DEVELOP and Pixel Addict, exploring topics such as the cultural and social impact of AI Music and the Arts. | SELECTED ARTICLES
Additional credits include BBC Radio 4 productions of Good Omens and Neverwhere - and, perhaps more relevant for retro gaming enthusiasts - his early projects include Privateer 2: The Darkening (with Christopher Walken, Clive Owen and John Hurt), Freelancer, Conquest, Brute Force, Theme Park World (aka Sim Theme Park), F1 2000, Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat, Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels, Theme Park Inc. (aka Theme Coaster), Flight of the Amazon Queen, Cutthroat Island and more.
From his early years at Electronic Arts to his time at Pinewood Studios in London working across media industries, Hannigan helped to pioneer music systems for interactive entertainment, used in titles such as the BAFTA-winning Theme Park World (Bullfrog Productions) and the BAFTA-nominated Republic: The Revolution (created by Elixir Studios under Demis Hassabis, now co-founder of Google DeepMind). His early work also includes sound design for productions such as the Golden Reel-nominated Lost in Space.
