Stuart Hancock

Stuart Hancock (born 5 August 1975) is a British composer of film, TV and concert music.

Hancock is known for having composed the original soundtracks to series 2 of the BBC fantasy series Atlantis, the animated TV adaptation of We're Going On A Bear Hunt and the Netflix comedy horror Crazyhead.

In 1999, Hancock was the winner of the Silent Sounds nationwide competition to be commissioned to re-score music for the 1920s Hollywood silent feature film Lucky Star.

Hancock was a full-time in-house composer for London-based music production company Mcasso Music between 1999 and 2005, during which time he composed and produced music for many national and international advertising campaigns.

Whilst at Mcasso, Hancock scored his first two television series: The Lampies, a BBC animated children's series, and series 14 of the ITV drama London's Burning, including co-composing its new theme music.

He also worked on incidental music for Aardman's Creature Comforts TV series, and themes and scores for ITV's Challenge of a Lifetime, Guinness World Records, and the reality series Reborn in the USA.

Hancock has provided scores for many independent feature films, with an EMR It also the and

The score was premiered live with the film by the Tempus Chamber Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall on 23 February 2001.

In 2007 and 2008, Hancock scored two mixed martial arts action feature films for director Chee Keong Cheung, Underground (12), and Bodyguard: A New Beginning.

Both have had album releases on the MovieScore Media label.

The Underground score, in particular, was praised for the strength of its main theme: "Well, simply put, it's fabulous, largely because of its powerful, driving main theme, which dominates the score. It's so rare to find a really memorable main theme in films these days, so when you find one like this, it's precious indeed."

"Underground has a good theme; a very good one. Hancock throws it through numerous variations over the course of his score… sending it to very different places, too – it's good to hear a composer take a piece like this and actually do something with it... This is a thoroughly enjoyable album – uncomplicated but satisfying."

Hancock scored the 2010 drama-documentary One Night in Turin, which told the story of the England football team at the Italia 1990 World Cup.

A third album release on the MovieScore Media label, Darren Rea of Review Graveyard declared that Hancock's music captured "everything that's great about movie soundtracks. This is an emotional score... Listen out for Stuart Hancock in the future – this is a name you'll hopefully be hearing a lot of."

Hancock's next film score was to accompany the short fantasy film Hawk, directed by MJ McMahon, which premiered at BAFTA in 2011.

The music was recorded with the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra, the Côr Cymru winning choir Serendipity, and former Official Harpist to the Prince of Wales, Catrin Finch.

On its album release, Hawk 's music was widely complimented for its epic ambition and rousing orchestral and choral scoring and would go on to garner Hancock the a and a

Later in 2011, Hancock worked with animator Neil Boyle on the score for his animated short The Last Belle.

Upon its EP release, the music was praised as "a compact work of pure, distilled charm!"

and that "it brings to mind the best of Jerry Goldsmith, Alan Silvestri, Danny Elfman and John Williams but with that unique Hancock twist that his followers have already grown to love… From the first note to the last, this is a meticulously planned masterclass in how to grab the listener's attention."

The score was and Hancock is scoring again for Boyle and co-director Kirk Hendry on Kensuke's Kingdom, the animated feature film adaptation of the Michael Morpurgo book of the same name, due for release in 2022.

At the Jerry Goldsmith Awards 2013, Hancock was nominated in the categories of Best Film Score (for MJ McMahon's Hawk) and Best Documentary Score (for his music to Plants of Qatar/The Desert Treasure, a nature documentary directed for Qatar National Day by Lyndal Davies).

Hancock won for Best Documentary Score, and was declared Best Composer overall, receiving his statuette at the Puente Genil ceremony during the International Film Music Festival, Cordoba, Spain, on 26 June 2013.

The documentary went on to win the Violetta d'Oro for Best Soundtrack at the Parma International Music Film Festival later the same year, and a

Hancock won a further two categories at the Jerry Goldsmith Awards in 2014: Best Song (for 'Take My Hand' from Unknown Heart, with lyrics by Giles Foster), and Best Free Creation (for his re-score of the silent film One Week).

Following his participation in the 2014 ASCAP Film and Television Scoring Workshop in Los Angeles, Hancock won the ASCAP Foundation Harold Arlen Film and TV award, a special recognition for "excellence, professionalism, musical ability and career potential".

In 2014, Hancock was commissioned to score the second series of the BBC fantasy drama Atlantis, which aired on BBC One from November 2014 to May 2015.

Produced by Urban Myth Films' Johnny Capps, Julian Murphy and Howard Overman, the series starred Mark Addy, Jack Donnelly and Robert Emms, with Juliet Stevenson as The Oracle, and Sarah Parish as Pasiphae.

He won the BASCA British Composer Award in 2015 for his community song-cycle, Snapshot Songs.

Hancock attended Downing College, Cambridge University, earning a BA in Geography.

He was the inaugural recipient of the Pomona-Downing Scholarship, studying for an academic year at Pomona College, Claremont, California, US, where he developed his interest in music composition and scored his first film.

He subsequently gained a place on the Masters Course in Composition for Film and Television at the London College of Music, graduating with Distinction.

In 2015, Hancock scored the short film Killing Thyme for director MJ McMahon, and 'Off to the Vet', a long-form episode of the popular online animated series Simon's Cat.

On 25 November 2015, Morgan Jeffery of Digital Spy announced the forthcoming release of Hancock's Atlantis soundtrack album.

On 11 December, Silva Screen Records released the soundtrack on CD and digitally.

The album features 30 tracks and 73 minutes of music score from series 2.

Reviewed at Synchrotones, Pete Simons wrote "Stuart Hancock's Atlantis is a magnificent work... What is impressive about Atlantis is its big cinematic feel; along with its large orchestral performance...the score sounds vibrant and exciting in a way that many similar scores don't."

His soundtracks for Killing Thyme and We're Going On A Bear Hunt picked up the Best Live Action and Best Animated Film Scores in 2016 and 2017 respectively.

Urban Myth Films and creator Overman enlisted Hancock as composer for their next production, the 2016 comedy-horror Crazyhead.

Documentary scores include The Ice King (2018) for BBC Storyville, and Hiroshima & Nagasaki: 75 Years Later (2020) for The History Channel.