Harry Gregson-Williams

Harry Gregson-Williams began his work in films as an orchestrator, arranger, and writer on many of Stanley Myers’ films, rapidly learning film scoring techniques and forming relationships with other former protëgës of Myers including Hans Zimnier with whom he subsequently worked with on The Lion King, Crimson Tide, Beyond Rangoon, K2, and Two Deaths.

Also through his association with Myers, Gregson-Williams became friends with legendary filmmaker Nicolas Roeg, composing his first major scores for Roeg’s Full Body Massage and Hotel Paradise.

In 1995 he moved to Los Angeles, quickly launching his Hollywood career with scores for Billie August’s Smilla ‘s Sense of Snow and The Whole Wide World, a period romance starring Renee Zellweger and Vincent D’Onofrio. In 1996, he scored The Rock for producer Jerry Bruckheimer. The following year found Gregson-Williams busy with eight feature film projects, starting with MGM’s thriller Deceiver, directed by the Pate brothers, and The Replacement Killers with Mira Sorvino and Asian superstar Chow Yun Fat. The public was then treated to a very different Gregson-Williams score for The Borrowers, a live-action version of the classic English children’s story.

He teamed up with legendary rock guitarist Trevor Rabin for scores to Armageddon and Enemy of the State before moving on to Dreamworks’ computer animated movie Antz. Then followed a Celtic-themed score for The Match, as well as composing selected cues for Dreamworks’ The Prince of Egypt.

Gregson-Williams’ diverse work continued as he interspersed big studio films with smaller independent movies. In 1999, after completing the score for King of the Jungle starring John Leguizamo and Rosie Perez, Gregson-Williams scored the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced TV movie, Swing Vote concurrently scoring an episode of The Hunger starring David Bowie, the independent film The Magic of Marciano, and Fox’s urban drama Light it Up.

2000 saw Gregson-Williams scoring two of the year's most successful family films with Disney's The Tigger Movie and Dreamworks' Chicken Run. He also composed the music for a British independent film, Whatever Happened to Harold Smith?. Later that year videogame company Konami approached Harry to write music for the videogame Metal Gear Solid 2.

A recognized and a highly sought-after talent in Hollywood, Gregson-Williams scored the Dreamworks animated feature Shrek, and Tony Scott's Spy Game, staffing Robert Redford and Brad Pitt. Later that year, G-W completed an album co-written with guitarist Peter Distefano (Porno for Pyros) which features vocalists Peter Murphy, Divine Styler, Miho Hatori, and Lizbeth Scott. Instrumentalists include Flea (Red Hot Chill Peppers) amongst others.

Gregson-Williams met director Joel Schummacher in 2002 which led to his two latest feature film scores - Phone Booth staffing Cohn Farrell, and Veronica Guerin staffing Cate Blanchett. Soon after the completion of the score for Veronica Guerin, Gregson-Wilhiams embarked on a new DreamWorks animation entitled Sinbad featuring the voices of Brad Pitt, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michelle Pfeiffer.

Currently, Harry is engaged on a Universal action picture entitled The Rundown staffing Christopher Walken, as well as the next instalment in the Metal Gear Solid videogame series, Snake Eater.

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