“The most powerful weapon is the music.”

L.A. TIMES

“… James Hannigan’s music makes The Sandman totally immersive.”

THE SUNDAY TIMES

“the best music in the series..”

MOVIE MUSIC UK – HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX (VG)

“…a wonderful cinematic score”

AUDIOFILE MAGAZINE

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

GAME INFORMER

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

MULTIVERSITY COMICS

“horns and violins rise to cacophony, 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… possibly the most appropriate music ever….”

GAME FAQS

“James Hannigan has not missed a beat.”

GAMING TREND

“formidable music, sometimes terrifying, sometimes tender…”

THE TIMES

“…some of the most viscerally satisfying bombast ever produced”

GGM

“The soundtrack is particularly fantastic”

IGN

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

FORBES

“The music truly excels”

RAPID REVIEWS

“The music is amazing. James Hannigan returns, expands the original … Brilliant Music.”

GAMEWATCHER

James Hannigan is a composer, producer, and conference founder known for his richly melodic, emotionally charged work across multi-million-selling video games, television, and bestselling audio drama. A BAFTA, Webby, and IFMCA (International Film Music Critics Association) award winner - with a further five BAFTA nominations - his work includes entries in the Harry Potter, Dead Space, RuneScape, Evil Genius, Warhammer, FIFA, F1, Transformers, and Command & Conquer series, as well as several Wing Commander spin-offs and titles in the Theme Park, Art Academy, The Lord of the Rings, and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs series.

His audio drama and audiobook credits include the bestselling Harry Potter audiobooks, Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, the New York Times #1 series The Sandman (DC), the Audie Award-winning Alien series, Kingdom Come (DC), and BBCR4 adaptations of Neverwhere, Stardust, and Good Omens.

Hannigan’s themes - including the parodic cult favourite Red Alert 3 Theme: Soviet March - have been streamed hundreds of millions of times worldwide, and several of his scores have been recorded with world-renowned orchestras, including the Philharmonia, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Skywalker Symphony Orchestra, at studios such as Abbey Road, Air-Lyndhurst, and Skywalker Ranch.

(Montage conducted by Allan Wilson / James Hannigan / Johannes Vogel)

Selected credits include The Sandman Acts I–III, including the “The Song of Orpheus”, sung by Regé-Jean Page; Steelrising, Primeval (ITV/BBC America), Reign of Fire, Catwoman, Terraria: Otherworld, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (IFMCA Award, BAFTA Nomination, 2010), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Parts 1 & 2 (EA/WBIE); Dead Space 3, Command & Conquer 4, Call of Antia, The BAFTA-Nominated Evil Genius, Evil Genius 2, and Transformers Universe. A small number of his tracks have also been heard in Terraria and the Super Smash Bros. series.

Tracks from his catalogue have featured in numerous television series, including Top Gear, The Grand Tour, Emily in Paris, Saturday Night Live, Olaf Presents, SpongeBob SquarePants, The World According to Jeff Goldblum, Dance Moms, Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Tour of Houses, Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts and others.

Beginning his career in the mid-1990s as an innovator of interactive music, first as Electronic Arts Europe’s in-house composer and then freelance, based for over a decade at Pinewood Studios, his earliest credits include Privateer 2: The Darkening (with Christopher Walken, Clive Owen, and John Hurt), Chris Roberts' Freelancer, Conquest, Brute Force, Theme Park World (also known as Sim Theme Park), F1 2000, Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat, Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels, Theme Park Inc. (Theme Coaster), Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix 4, various entries in the FIFA series, Beasts and Bumpkins, Flight of the Amazon Queen, Cutthroat Island, and Republic: The Revolution - developed by Elixir Studios under Demis Hassabis, co-founder of Google DeepMind.

Between 2013 and 2020, Hannigan co-founded and organised the sold-out Southbank-based conference series Game Music Connect and Screen Music Connect - held in partnership with Playstation, BAFTA, the Ivors Academy, PRS For Music, Classic FM, Music Week, Electronic Arts and others.

A fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, James has been interviewed several times by BBC Radio, Classic FM, Sky TV, IGN, Forbes and MusicRadar, and has talked at The Royal College of Music, The School of Sound, EIGF, Musicworks, Ludomusicology, the DEVELOP Conference and other events. In 2012, he was a subject of BAFTA’s Conversations with Composers series at the Royal Albert Hall. He has also written for outlets including Classic FM, DEVELOP (authoring its first ever audio-related cover feature), and Pixel Addict - exploring topics such as the role of music in games and film, and the growing impact of AI Music and the Arts.

James Hannigan doesn't use social media