James Hannigan composed music for Bullfrog games such as Theme Park World and Theme Park Inc. He is a BAFTA award-winning composer and sound designer with a career spanning several industries, from multimillion-selling video games and television to groundbreaking audio drama. His credits include entries in the Harry Potter, Dead Space, Evil Genius, RuneScape, Transformers, The Lord of the Rings, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Theme Park, EA Sports, and Command and Conquer video game series; full-cast audio adaptations including the NY Times #1 bestselling The Sandman (featuring James McAvoy, Michael Sheen and Regé-Jean Page), the Alien series, Discworld and others. His themes, such as the much-memed and parodic Soviet March, have been streamed hundreds of millions of times across digital platforms, and among his other awards are a Webby People's Choice Award for The Sandman Act II and an IFMCA (International Film Music Critics Association) Award for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (also BAFTA award-nominated, 2010)
An occasional BBC radio interviewee, Comic Con and conference panelist, Hannigan has in past years co-founded sold-out talk events and conferences, including Screen Music Connect and Game Music Connect. Introduced to inspire and educate professional and aspiring composers alike, events held at the London Southbank Centre have partnered with BAFTA, Classic FM, Sony PlayStation, Music Week, The Ivors Academy and others.
Represented by COOL MUSIC in London, Hannigan has recorded with several world-class orchestras, including The Philharmonia Orchestra, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, The Skywalker Symphony Orchestra, The Budapest Film Orchestra, The Chamber Orchestra of London (COOL) and The Slovak Symphony Orchestra, recording at locations including Abbey Road, Air-Lyndhurst and Skywalker Ranch. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a BAFTA member for over twenty years, Hannigan has been featured in BAFTA’s Conversations with Composers held at the Royal Albert Hall. He has also appeared on the cover of DEVELOP, written articles for Classic FM and other outlets, and has been a guest speaker at several universities and colleges, among them the Royal College of Music. His music has been performed in concerts ranging from Video Games Live to RuneFest.
Hannigan's past projects also include entries in the Space Hulk, F1, FIFA, Grand Prix, and Warhammer game series; Primeval (BBC America), Red Alert 3, Dead Space 3, Nintendo's Art Academy (also heard in the Super Smash Bros. series), Reign of Fire, Catwoman, the innovative interactive score of Republic: The Revolution (designed by Google DeepMind co-founder, Demis Hassabis; BAFTA Award Nomination, Original Music, 2003), Freelancer, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Call of Antia, Evil Genius (BAFTA Award Nomination, Original Music, 2004), Evil Genius 2 (2022), Steelrising (2022), Terraria: Otherworld, Command and Conquer 4, Conquest, Brute Force, The Darkening (with Christopher Walken, Clive Owen and John Hurt), Transformers Universe, Theme Park World (aka Sim Theme Park; BAFTA Award, 2000), RuneScape: The Orchestral Collection, the hugely popular Harry Potter audiobook series read by Stephen Fry, BBC R4 adaptations of Good Omens and Neverwhere, Lost in Space (sound design; Golden Reel Nomination), and much more.
Music from Hannigan’s back catalogue can be heard in numerous TV productions, commercials and trailers - ranging recently from Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts, Top Gear and The Grand Tour to Floor is Lava, SpongeBob SquarePants, Disney shorts, and The World According to Jeff Goldblum. His music has also accompanied various experiences, installations, immersive experiences and dance routines, from the Dream Portal at NY Comic Con to Dance Moms.