Harry Gregson-Williams

Hailing from the United Kingdom, award-winning composer Harry Gregson-Williams first gained traction within Hollywood cinema near the dawn of the new millennium. He earned recognition for his contributions to the Shrek and The Chronicles of Narnia film series and is the elder sibling of film and television composer Rupert Gregson-Williams.

Born in England on December 13, 1961, he trained in voice and piano at London’s Guildhall School of Music & Drama, an institution where he subsequently instructed students in music. Although he entered film scoring in the early 1990s, his pivotal opportunity arrived when Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer mentored him during the mid-1990s. In that capacity he contributed to soundtracks for Zimmer’s projects such as Crimson Tide (1995), Muppet Treasure Island (1996), The Rock (1996), and As Good as It Gets (1997). He later partnered with Trevor Rabin on the 1998 releases Enemy of the State and Armageddon, and with John Powell on Antz (1998), Chicken Run (2000), and Shrek (2001).

Gregson-Williams simultaneously assumed primary scoring duties for family-oriented features including The Tigger Movie (2000) and Spy Kids (2001), alongside action pictures such as Phone Booth (2002) and The Rundown (2003). By the middle of the decade he was entrusted with major studio productions like Shrek 2 (2004), Man on Fire (2004), and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), the latter earning him a Grammy nomination for best score. Further 2000s assignments encompassed Gone Baby Gone (2007), Shrek the Third (2007), The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008), and X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009). He also supplied original music to the Metal Gear Solid and Call of Duty video-game series.

Notable 2010s efforts featured Shrek Forever After (2010), Cowboys & Aliens (2011), The Martian (2015), and The Zookeeper’s Wife (2017). Additional credits include the giant-shark thriller The Meg (2018), the Denzel Washington-starring action film The Equalizer 2, and the Disney nature documentary Penguins (2019). His score for the 2017 Australian drama Breath was issued belatedly by Filmtrax in 2020.