biog
James Hannigan is a BAFTA-winning composer with credits spanning AAA games, television, audio drama and other media. His work includes entries in major game 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, and Command & Conquer, among others. | LISTEN
A five-time BAFTA nominee, an IFMCA Award winner for EA’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and, more recently, a Webby Award recipient for The Sandman: Act II, his full-cast audio drama credits include The Sandman (with a cast including James McAvoy and Michael Sheen; Amazon’s best-selling Audible Original to date), DC’s Kingdom Come, BBC Radio 4 adaptations of Neverwhere and Good Omens, and the Audie Award-winning Alien series. He has also written themes for the newly recorded Discworld and the much-loved Harry Potter audiobooks read by Stephen Fry – the latter of which have amassed well over a billion listens. Recent and current projects include The Sandman Act III, Steelrising, Call of Antia, Evil Genius 2, and unannounced projects from Amazon.
Hannigan’s music – including tracks such as the tongue-in-cheek Soviet March from Red Alert 3, RuneScape: The Orchestral Collection and The Song of Orpheus sung by Regé-Jean Page, alongside wider placements across television and advertising – has reached audiences through millions of streams, broadcasts and productions. His television work includes Primeval (BBC America), while his tracks have been licensed for use in an enormous range of shows, including Top Gear, The Grand Tour, Emily in Paris, Saturday Night Live and many more.
With his scores often combining traditional techniques, sound design and experimental production, he has recorded with ensembles such as the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of London and the Skywalker Symphony Orchestra – at Abbey Road, Air, and Skywalker Sound.
Earlier and additional credits include entries in the EA Sports and Grand Prix series; Freelancer, Privateer 2: The Darkening (featuring Christopher Walken, Clive Owen and John Hurt), Catwoman, Theme Park World, Reign of Fire, Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat, Space Hulk, Conquest, Dead Space 3, Cutthroat Island, Flight of the Amazon Queen; Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix through to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (EA), and the BAFTA-nominated Evil Genius and Republic: The Revolution designed by Demis Hassabis (later CEO of Google DeepMind). A number of his tracks can also be heard in the Terraria and Super Smash Bros. franchises, and his earliest credits include sound design for films such as the Golden Reel-nominated Lost in Space.
Hannigan is a longstanding BAFTA member and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and has created sold-out industry conferences including Screen Music Connect and Game Music Connect, held at London’s Southbank Centre in partnership with organisations including BAFTA, Classic FM, Sony PlayStation, Music Week and The Ivors Academy. He has been interviewed by BBC Radio, Classic FM, Sky TV, IGN, Forbes, MusicRadar and other outlets, and has been a featured subject of BAFTA's Conversations With Composers series held at the Royal Albert Hall.
He has written forewords for books including Tim Summers’ Understanding Video Game Music (Cambridge University Press, 2016), as well as articles for Classic FM, cover features for DEVELOP and Pixel Addict, on subjects including screen music, interactive audio and the impact of AI in the arts. | NEWS
James Hannigan is represented worldwide by COOL Music.
