John Powell (film composer)

John Powell (born 18 September 1963) is an English composer best known for his film scores. He has been based in Los Angeles since 1997 and has composed the scores to over 70 feature films. He is best known for composing and/or co-composing scores for animated films, such as ''Antz'' (1998), ''The Road to El Dorado'' (2000), ''Chicken Run'' (2000), ''Robots'' (2005), the second through fourth ''Ice Age'' films (2006–2012), the '' Happy Feet'' films (2006–2011), '' Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!'' (2008), '' Bolt'' (2008), the ''How to Train Your Dragon'' trilogy (2010–2019), the '' Rio'' films (2011–2014), '' Dr. Seuss' The Lorax'' (2012), and ''Ferdinand'' (2017).

His work on ''Happy Feet'', ''Ferdinand'' and '' Solo: A Star Wars Story'' has earned him three Grammy nominations. He was nominated for an Academy Award for ''How to Train Your Dragon''.

Powell was a member of Hans Zimmer's music studio, Remote Control Productions, and has collaborated frequently with other composers from the studio, including Harry Gregson-Williams on ''Antz'', ''Chicken Run'' and ''Shrek'' and Zimmer himself on '' Chill Factor'', ''The Road to El Dorado'', and the first two ''Kung Fu Panda'' films.

Early life and education

John Powell was born on 18 September 1963 in London. As a child, he played the violin and viola. His skill in the violin allowed him to study at the Trinity College of Music in London. There, he met ‎Josh Ashton Thomas, who orchestrated many of Powell's scores. Powell played for "Faboulistics", an amateur rock and roll band.

After finishing college, he composed music for commercials, which led to a job as an assistant to the composer Patrick Doyle on several film productions, including ''Much Ado About Nothing''. In 1995, Powell co-founded the London-based commercial music house Independently Thinking Music, which produced scores for more than 100 British and French commercials and independent films.

Career

Powell's first score was for the Season 4 of the TV series ''Stay Lucky''. He moved to Los Angeles in 1997 and scored his first major film, ''Face/Off''. It was followed by ''Antz'' in 1998, the first film produced by DreamWorks Animation, which he co-scored with fellow British composer Harry Gregson-Williams. Two years later, Powell collaborated with composer Hans Zimmer on the score for ''The Road to El Dorado''. Later that year, he collaborated with Gregson-Williams again on the score to ''Chicken Run; t''hey collaborated again the following year on ''Shrek''. Gregson-Williams composed all the subsequent Shrek films himself. In 2001 he also scored ''Evolution'', ''I Am Sam'', '' Just Visiting'' and '' Rat Race''.

In 2002 Powell was hired to score '' The Bourne Identity'' after Carter Burwell left the project, and has gone on to score all of director Doug Liman's subsequent films. He also returned to score the series' other two films, '' The Bourne Supremacy'' and '' The Bourne Ultimatum'', under British director Paul Greengrass.

Powell collaborated with Liman again to score '' Mr. & Mrs. Smith'' (2005). That year he also scored ''Robots'' for Blue Sky Studios, and went on to score all of the studio's subsequent films until 2017's ''Ferdinand''.

In 2006, he scored Greengrass' '' United 93''. He also composed music for '' Ice Age: The Meltdown'', following David Newman, who scored the first ''Ice Age'' film; as well as '' X-Men: The Last Stand a''nd ''Happy Feet'', for which he won a Film & TV Music Award for Best Score for an Animated Feature Film. The next year he scored ''The Bourne Ultimatum''. In 2008 he reunited with Hans Zimmer and returned to DreamWorks Animation to score ''Kung Fu Panda'', and also wrote music for '' Jumper'', '' Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!'', ''Hancock'', and '' Bolt''. In 2009 he scored the third film of ''Ice Age'' series; '' Dawn of the Dinosaurs''.

In 2010, Powell composed the score to ''How to Train Your Dragon,'' which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Score. It was his sixth DreamWorks Animation film, although the first where he composed the whole score himself. That year he has also scored Greengrass's ''Green Zone'' and ''Knight and Day''.

In 2013, Powell took a sabbatical year from film scoring. In April 2014, after completing his scores to sequels '' Rio 2'' and ''How to Train Your Dragon 2'', he announced he would take another break to compose concert music, including a 45-minute oratorio to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of World War I. The piece, "A Prussian Requiem", with a libretto by Michael Petry, premiered on 6 March 2016 at The Royal Festival Hall, London with José Serebrier conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Powell composed the score for ''Solo: A Star Wars Story'' (2018), collaborating with John Williams, who wrote Han Solo's theme. In 2019, Powell scored '' How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World'', the final film in the ''How to Train Your Dragon'' series.

Filmography

Television

Film

1990s

2000s

2010s

2020s

Other credits

2020s

Studio Albums

Archival soundtrack albums

References

External links

* – official site
*
*

John Powell
biography at SoundtrackNet

{{DEFAULTSORT:Powell, John
1963 births
Animated film score composers
Annie Award winners
Blue Sky Studios people
DreamWorks Animation people
English expatriates in the United States
English film score composers
English male film score composers
Hollywood Records artists
Ivor Novello Award winners
Living people
People from East Sussex
Varèse Sarabande Records artists
Walt Disney Animation Studios people