Christopher James Larkin is an Australian composer for video games, film, and television, best known for his work on ''

Hollow Knight ''Hollow Knight'' is a 2017 Metroidvania video game developed and published by Australian Indie game, independent developer Team Cherry. The player controls an nameless insectoid warrior exploring Hallownest, a fallen kingdom plagued by a super ...

'' (2017) and its upcoming sequel '' Hollow Knight: Silksong'' (2025). Some of his other works include '' Pac-Man 256'', (2025) '' Outfolded'', (2016) ''TOHU'', (2021) and '' Hacknet'' (2015).

Early life and education

Christopher James Larkin was born in

Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

. Larkin studied composition at Brighton Secondary School, then at the

Elder Conservatorium of Music The Elder Conservatorium of Music, also known as "The Con", is located in the centre of Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, and is named in honour of its benefactor, Sir Thomas Elder (1818–1897). Dating in its earliest form from 1883 ...

at the

University of Adelaide The University of Adelaide is a public university, public research university based in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. Its main campus in the Adelaide city centre includes many Sa ...

. Larkin began composing music at a young age and collaborated with filmmaking students while he attended the Elder Conservatorium. In October 2015, he submitted his thesis for an

MPhil A Master of Philosophy (MPhil or PhM; Latin ' or ') is a postgraduate degree. The name of the degree is most often abbreviated MPhil (or, at times, as PhM in other countries). MPhil are awarded to postgraduate students after completing at least ...

in music composition, entitled "Orchestrating the wasteland: sample library engineering as an integral process of realising the music for ''Wastelander Panda''".PDF
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Career

Larkin composed the score for the web series '' Wastelander Panda: Exile'', released in 2014 as a second set of three 10-minute episodes. He knew Ari Gibson, the director of Team Cherry, prior to starting work on their game, ''

'', which was released in 2017. He found out about the project when it was still a

Kickstarter Kickstarter, PBC is an American Benefit corporation, public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York City, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative project ...

and decided to send in a demo for the project. He then worked with Team Cherry to produce a full soundtrack for the game, and it was released in 2017 to critical acclaim. he is continuing his collaboration with Team Cherry on ''Hollow Knights upcoming sequel, '' Hollow Knight: Silksong''. In 2021 Larkin composed the music for the video game ''TOHU''. He works as a professional composer and

sound designer In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the br ...

for visual media such as film, TV, and video games.

Other activities

Larkin spoke at the High Score 2023 conference hosted by

APRA AMCOS APRA AMCOS consists of Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) and Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS), both copyright management organisations or copyright collectives which jointly represent over 100,000 songwri ...

, alongside

Yoko Shimomura is a Japanese composer and pianist primarily known for her work in video games. She graduated from the Osaka College of Music in 1988 and began working in the video game industry by joining Capcom the same year. Shimomura wrote music for severa ...

Compositional style

Larkin integrates elements of his classical training with a diverse range of musical styles. He draws inspiration from Romantic composers such as

Debussy Achille Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influe ...

as well as visual-media composers such as

James Newton Howard James Newton Howard (born June 9, 1951) is an American film composer, orchestrator and music producer. He has scored over 100 films and is the recipient of a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, and nine nominations for Academy Awards. His film scores ...

Joe Hisaishi , known professionally as , is a Japanese composer, musical director, conductor and pianist, known for over 100 film scores and solo albums dating back to 1981. Hisaishi's music has been known to explore and incorporate different genres, inclu ...

, and

Koji Kondo is a Japanese composer and senior executive at the video game company Nintendo. He is best known for his contributions for the '' Super Mario'' and ''The Legend of Zelda'' series, with his ''Super Mario Bros.'' theme being the first piece of mu ...

. His most notable work, the ''Hollow Knight'' soundtrack, is characterised as conveying "dark elegance and melancholy." The soundtrack is largely orchestral and employs recurring

leitmotif A leitmotif or () is a "short, recurring musical phrase" associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical concepts of ''idée fixe'' or ''motto-theme''. The spelling ''leitmotif'' is a partial angliciz ...

s throughout different tracks, each often corresponding to a location or character. For the adventure game ''TOHU'', produced by Fireart Games, Larkin used the digital audio workstation

Cubase Cubase is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed by Steinberg for music and MIDI recording, arranging and editing. The first version, which was originally only a MIDI sequencer and ran on the Atari ST computer, was released in 1989. Cut-do ...

to create a musical score that reflects the game's whimsical story and visuals. His process involved observing the gameplay sent to him by the developers, and sonically interpreting those visual elements.

List of works

Larkin has composed music for the following productions:

Awards

* 2015: Best Composition, South Australian Screen Awards * 2016: Best Sound Design, South Australian Screen Awards * 2017: Best Sound for Interactive Media,

Australian Screen Sound Guild The Australian Screen Sound Guild is a professional association for people working in audio engineering and post-production in film, television, multimedia, and related industries across Australia. It recognises excellence in the industries by a ...

Awards * 2021: Best Score, South Australian Screen Awards 2021

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Larkin, Christopher Year of birth missing (living people) Australian video game composers Living people Musicians from Adelaide