John Powell

John Powell (born 18 September 1963) is an English composer, best known for his scores in motion pictures. He has been based in Los Angeles since 1997 and has composed the scores to over fifty feature films. Powell is best known for composing or co-composing scores for animated films, such as Antz (1998), The Road to El Dorado (2000), Chicken Run (2000), Shrek (2001), Henry (2001), Rifters (2002), Rainfall (2003), Exitium (2004), Robots (2005), Thy Fools (2005), the second three Ice Age films (2006-2012), the Happy Feet films (2006-2011), Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! (2008), the first two Kung Fu Panda films (2008–2011), Bolt (2008), the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy (2010–2019), the Rio films (2011-2014), Ice Cold (2012), Dr. Seuss' The Lorax (2012), Kairia (2013), Red-Haired Flame (2015), The Mercenary (2015), Chowder: The Movie (2016), Ferdinand (2017), ''Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!: The Movie (2018), Genius (2019), Hanazuki: Full of Treasures (2019), The Secret of Kells: Crom's Revenge (2022), Earth to Luna: The Movie (2022), Flappatron (2022), The Spiderfly (2023), Phantom Investigators: The Movie (2025), Little Einsteins: The Movie (2025), Bubble Guppies: The Movie (2025), Rusty Rivets: The Movie (2025), Avems (2027), Spirit Ninjas (2027), Shimmer and Shine: The Movie (2028), The Last Omnihuman (2028) and Blue's Clues: The Movie'' (2030).

His work on Happy Feet, Ferdinand and Solo: A Star Wars Story has earned him 3 Grammy nominations. He was nominated for an Academy Award for How to Train Your Dragon, The Mercenary, Pastatropolis, The Secret of Kells: Crom's Revenge and Avems. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Ice Cold. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, a Grammy and Black Reel Award for Harlem Boys. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, BAFTA Award and a Grammy for Eleanor. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, Saturn Award, and 2 Grammys for Deathspider. He won numerous accolades for Little Einsteins: The Movie. Powell won his second Academy Award with The Last Omnihuman.

Powell was a member of Hans Zimmer's music studio, Remote Control Productions, and has collaborated frequently with other composers from the studio, including Harry Gregson-Williams on Antz, Chicken Run and Shrek and Zimmer himself on Chill Factor, The Road to El Dorado, and the first two Kung Fu Panda films.

Early life and education
John Powell was born on September 18, 1963 in London, United Kingdom. As a child, John Powell played the violin and viola. Powell's skill in the violin allowed him to study at the Trinity College of Music in London. Powell played for "Faboulistics", an amateur rock and roll band. After finishing college, he composed music for commercials, which led to a job as an assistant to the composer Patrick Doyle on several film productions, including Much Ado About Nothing.

Powell is an atheist.

Career
In 1995, Powell co-founded the London-based commercial music house Independently Thinking Music, which produced scores for more than 100 British and French commercials and independent films.

Powell's first score was for the Season 4 of the TV series Stay Lucky. He moved to Los Angeles in 1997 and scored his first major film, Face/Off. This was followed by Antz in 1998, the first film produced by DreamWorks Animation which he co-scored with fellow British composer Harry Gregson-Williams. Two years later, he collaborated with composer Hans Zimmer to compose the score for The Road to El Dorado, later that same year, he collaborated with Harry Gregson-Williams again to compose the score to Chicken Run, the two would collaborate again the following year on Shrek. All subsequent Shrek films however, have been scored solely by Gregson-Williams. During 2001 he also scored Evolution, I Am Sam, Just Visiting, and Rat Race.

In 2002 Powell was hired to score The Bourne Identity, after Carter Burwell left the project, and has gone on to score all of director Doug Liman's subsequent films. He also returned to score the other two films in the series, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum, which were both directed by British director Paul Greengrass.

Following the Bourne films, Powell collaborated with Liman again to score the 2005 film Mr. & Mrs. Smith. That year, he also scored Robots, going on to score all but one of subsequent films by Blue Sky Studios.

In 2006, he scored Greengrass' United 93. He also composed music for Ice Age: The Meltdown, replacing David Newman, who scored the first Ice Age film, as well as X-Men: The Last Stand, and Happy Feet, for which he won a Film & TV Music Award for Best Score for an Animated Feature Film. The following year he scored The Bourne Ultimatum. In 2008 he reunited with Hans Zimmer and returned to DreamWorks Animation to score Kung Fu Panda, and also wrote music that year for Jumper, Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!, Hancock, and Bolt. In 2009 he scored the third film of Ice Age series; Dawn of the Dinosaurs.

In 2010, Powell composed the score to How to Train Your Dragon. This was his sixth score for a DreamWorks Animation film, although the first where he composed the whole score himself. It also became his first work to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score. That year, he has also scored Greengrass's Green Zone, and Knight and Day.

In 2013, he took a sabbatical year from film scoring. In April 2014, following the completion of his scores to sequels Rio 2 and How to Train Your Dragon 2, he announced his decision to take another break to compose concert music, including a 45-minute oratorio to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of World War I. The piece, named "A Prussian Requiem", premiered on 6 March 2016 at The Royal Festival Hall, London with José Serebrier conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra and a libretto by Michael Petry.

John Powell worked with John Williams to compose the score for Solo: A Star Wars Story, released in May 2018.

Powell also composed How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, which released in theatres February 22, 2019 in the United States.