Nicholas Britell

Nicholas Britell (born October 17, 1980) is an American film and television composer.

He has received numerous accolades including a Emmy Award as well as nominations for three Academy Awards and a Grammy Award.

He attended New Canaan Country School in New Canaan, CT, and he graduated valedictorian from the college preparatory school Hopkins School in 1999.

Britell is a graduate of the Juilliard School's Pre-College Division and a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard University in 2003.

At school, he was a member of the instrumental hip-hop group, The Witness Protection Program, in which he played keyboards and synthesizers.

Britell is part of an emerging generation of composers and artists who draw from an eclectic range of influences.

His work is inspired by Rachmaninoff, Gershwin, Philip Glass, Zbigniew Preisner, Quincy Jones and Dr. Dre.

In 2008, Britell gained wide notice performing his own work "Forgotten Waltz No. 2" in Natalie Portman's directorial debut Eve.

He collaborated again with Portman, writing music for the film New York, I Love You.

In 2011, Britell performed on piano with violin virtuoso Tim Fain in Portals.

The multimedia project also featured performances by Craig Black, Julia Eichten and Haylee Nichele, and featured music by Philip Glass and Nico Muhly, poetry by Leonard Cohen and choreography by Benjamin Millepied.

Regarding this collaboration, Vogue called Britell among "...the most talented young artists at work..."

As a film composer, Britell created the music for the movie Gimme the Loot, directed by Adam Leon.

The film would go on to compete in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.

It won the Grand Jury Prize at the SXSW Film Festival in 2012.

The music for the film garnered special praise from New York Magazine and Variety.

Britell's film composing career continued in 2012 with the scoring of Michele Mitchell's PBS documentary Haiti: Where Did the Money Go? The film, which aired over 1,000 times in the United States on PBS stations and was screened at the Oakland Film Festival and the BolderLife Film Festival in 2012, is the winner of the 2013 Edward R. Murrow Award for Best News Documentary and winner of a 2012 CINE Golden Eagle Award and a CINE Special Jury Award for Best Investigative Documentary.

Britell's music featured prominently in director Steve McQueen's Oscar-winning film 12 Years a Slave, for which he composed and arranged the on-camera music including the spiritual songs, work songs, featured violin performances, and dances.

Billboard called Britell "...the secret weapon in the music of 12 Years a Slave".

As a film producer, Britell produced the short film Whiplash, directed by Damien Chazelle, which won the Short Film Jury Award: US Fiction at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.

He subsequently helped produce the feature-film Whiplash, also directed by Chazelle and starring Miles Teller and J. K. Simmons.

"My Lord Sunshine", composed by Britell for 12 Years a Slave, was eligible for the 2014 Oscars' Best Original Song list.

The Los Angeles Times said of "My Lord Sunshine": "A work song, a spiritual, a blues lament, a communal statement – 'My Lord Sunshine (Sunrise)' is all of the above and more...[w]hat Britell accomplished is no easy feat, and it's a spiritual that feels and sounds of the era and deftly weaves in religious imagery with the daily horror of the slaves' lives."

Britell also notably reinterpreted "Roll Jordan Roll" for the film.

His work received wide critical acclaim and he was profiled in The Wall Street Journal.

The Whiplash feature won the Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic and Audience Award: Dramatic at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, went on to receive 5 Oscar nominations (including Best Picture), and won 3 Oscar awards.

Britell also wrote and produced the track "Reaction," produced the track "When I Wake," and performed and produced "No Two Words" for the film's soundtrack.

He also scored McKay's The Big Short (2015) and Vice (2018).

In 2015, Britell scored The Seventh Fire, a documentary directed by Jack Pettibone Riccobono and presented by Terrence Malick, which debuted to critical acclaim at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Britell scored Natalie Portman's directorial debut feature film A Tale of Love and Darkness, which screened at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.

Deadline called Britell's score for the film "riveting".

Britell also scored the Oscar-winning The Big Short, directed by Adam McKay, starring Brad Pitt, Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, and Steve Carell, based on the book The Big Short by Michael Lewis, and released by Paramount in December 2015.

He has received Academy Award nominations for Best Original Score for Barry Jenkins' Moonlight (2016) and If Beale Street Could Talk (2018), and Adam McKay's Don't Look Up (2021).

He is also known for scoring Battle of the Sexes (2017), Cruella (2021), and She Said (2022).

The HBO original series Succession (2018–2023) marked Britell's entry into television.

Britell scored all four seasons, earning the Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music in 2019.

His scores for the second, third, and fourth seasons of Succession each earned Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series nominations in 2020, 2022, and 2023.

His score for The Underground Railroad was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Limited or Anthology Series, Movie or Special in 2021.

His works, as described by Soraya McDonald of Film Comment, "seem to organically straddle accessibility and sophistication in a way that goes beyond the typical programming of a big-city pops orchestra...That might have something to do with the fact that Britell has long had one foot in the world of hip-hop and another in the world of classical music."

Britell was raised in a Jewish family in New York City.