BIOGRAPHY (Feb 2024)
Stuart Hancock - a composer and arranger whose work spans all media: film, TV, games, commercials and stage and concert works.
In 2023, Stuart had concert music commissioned in honour of His Majesty the King, and just before Christmas had his third opera premiered at the Royal Academy of Music, whilst his score for ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’ – the animated feature film adaptation of the popular children’s novel by Sir Michael Morpurgo – is generating awards buzz in advance of its cinema release this year.
Starring the voice talents of Cillian Murphy, Sally Hawkins and Ken Watanabe, ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’ is a stunningly beautiful hand-drawn animation from directors Neil Boyle and Kirk Hendry, with Stuart’s sweeping orchestral and choral score capturing the adventure, suspense and tender heart-break of the story. Praised in the Hollywood publication Deadline as a “timeless castaway fantasy”, it premiered at Annecy and the BFI London Film Festival, with Stuart awarded Best Music by the young audiences of Mon Premier Festival in France.
Stuart has composed the scores for three powerful recent documentaries. ‘Disorder’ – a poignant study of PTSD directed by BAFTA-winner Kate Blewett – was released on Prime Video and Apple TV in November 2023. ‘Hiroshima: 75 Years Later’ came out on the History Channel to mark the 2020 anniversary, documenting with archive footage and new interviews the Oppenheimer story and the build-up to the dropping of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs and their effects, both immediate and long-lasting. And ‘The Ice King’ for BBC Storyville: Stuart created an adapted classical score for a powerful feature-length tribute to trail-blazing Olympic ice skater John Curry.
High profile television work includes the title theme and incidental music for the hit BBC Saturday night game-show ‘I Can See Your Voice’, the dark orchestral score for the thirteen epic episodes of series 2 of BBC’s ‘Atlantis’ (2014-15), the award-winning animated TV special ‘We’re Going On A Bear Hunt’ (which earned Channel 4 its highest viewing figures of the year when it premiered on Christmas Eve 2016), and the brilliant Netflix/E4 comedy-horror series ‘Crazyhead’ which saw Stuart produce a score spiced up with retro grungy electronica.
Stuart conducts ‘Bear Hunt’ in a family concert presentation with the film to audiences in the UK and internationally, including recently as a charity fund-raiser at a sold-out Regent Hall on London’s Oxford Street with an orchestra combining the ceremonial bands of the Household Division (British Army).
Stuart cut his teeth as an in-house studio commercial composer with a Soho music production company at the start of his career, and continues to be very active in the advertising world with the last twelve months alone seeing his music scoring campaigns for Heathrow, Temptations, Sainsbury’s, Pampers and Peckish. With a number of soundtracks already under his belt, and following on from his Ivors Classical Award-win for ‘Snapshot Songs’, Stuart recorded and brought out his first album of concert works in 2019 with the BBC Concert Orchestra. Entitled ‘Raptures’, the album received universally glowing reviews across the classical music press:
The central piece on the album, Stuart’s Violin Concerto, was performed on February 29th 2020 at London’s Cadogan Hall (with Jack Liebeck as soloist with Imperial College Symphony Orchestra) and is set to be performed on July 3rd 2024, also at Cadogan Hall, with Fenella Humphreys as soloist.
For examples of Stuart's compositions, please click here.
ALBUMS CURRENTLY AVAILABLE:
RAPTURES --- WE'RE GOING ON A BEAR HUNT --- ATLANTIS --- THE LAST BELLE --- THE DESERT TREASURE
HAWK --- CRAZYHEAD --- ONE NIGHT IN TURIN --- UNDERGROUND --- BODYGUARD: A NEW BEGINNING
