Biography
Nic Raine has built a dual career as a film and television composer while earning widespread respect among peers for his long-running contributions as an orchestrator and conductor. Over more than two decades he worked closely with John Barry, and his broader credits encompass projects involving Vangelis, Paul McCartney, and the Wallace & Gromit series.
London-born Raine trained on piano, organ, guitar, and double bass during his early years. By the start of the 1980s he was receiving screen orchestration assignments, one of which placed him in the music department of the 1985 James Bond production A View to Kill. That engagement marked the beginning of an extensive collaboration with Barry that continued on The Living Daylights (1987), Chaplin (1992), and Cry the Beloved Country (1995). Parallel work during those years included the 1991 Liverpool Oratorio created with Carl Davis and Paul McCartney, plus the Wallace & Gromit animated shorts.
Throughout the 1990s Raine supplied original scores for several film-focused television documentaries, among them a PBS American Masters installment devoted to D.W. Griffith. In 2000 he composed for the Turner Classic Movies documentary Lon Chaney: A Thousand Faces. The following year he orchestrated Barry’s music for Michael Apted’s drama Enigma and played a central role in preparing a new digital recording of Barry’s complete score for The Lion in Winter, which he also conducted with the City of Prague Symphony Orchestra; Silva America issued the album. Additional reconstruction projects have covered Charlie Chaplin shorts, Miklos Rozsa’s The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, and Barry titles such as Robin & Marian.
Notable orchestration work in the 2000s includes Alexander (2004), The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), and Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008). In 2010 Raine helped establish Germany’s Klassik Radio Pops Orchestra. That same period saw his music appear in the Swiss thriller The Impasse of Desire, followed by original scores for the German productions Shores of Hope (Wir Wollten Aufs Meer) in 2012 and the 2013 television film The Beautiful Spy. He released the New World Music album Anima Pura, described as “music inspired by the pure soul of animals,” in 2014. Later assignments included orchestrations and conducting for Shigeru Umebayashi’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny (2016).
London-born Raine trained on piano, organ, guitar, and double bass during his early years. By the start of the 1980s he was receiving screen orchestration assignments, one of which placed him in the music department of the 1985 James Bond production A View to Kill. That engagement marked the beginning of an extensive collaboration with Barry that continued on The Living Daylights (1987), Chaplin (1992), and Cry the Beloved Country (1995). Parallel work during those years included the 1991 Liverpool Oratorio created with Carl Davis and Paul McCartney, plus the Wallace & Gromit animated shorts.
Throughout the 1990s Raine supplied original scores for several film-focused television documentaries, among them a PBS American Masters installment devoted to D.W. Griffith. In 2000 he composed for the Turner Classic Movies documentary Lon Chaney: A Thousand Faces. The following year he orchestrated Barry’s music for Michael Apted’s drama Enigma and played a central role in preparing a new digital recording of Barry’s complete score for The Lion in Winter, which he also conducted with the City of Prague Symphony Orchestra; Silva America issued the album. Additional reconstruction projects have covered Charlie Chaplin shorts, Miklos Rozsa’s The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, and Barry titles such as Robin & Marian.
Notable orchestration work in the 2000s includes Alexander (2004), The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), and Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008). In 2010 Raine helped establish Germany’s Klassik Radio Pops Orchestra. That same period saw his music appear in the Swiss thriller The Impasse of Desire, followed by original scores for the German productions Shores of Hope (Wir Wollten Aufs Meer) in 2012 and the 2013 television film The Beautiful Spy. He released the New World Music album Anima Pura, described as “music inspired by the pure soul of animals,” in 2014. Later assignments included orchestrations and conducting for Shigeru Umebayashi’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny (2016).
Albums
Effigy: Poison and the City (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
2020
Hollywood Blockbusters
2015
Anima Pura
2014
Die Spionin (Original Television Score)
2013
Movie Legends: The Music of John Barry
2013
Raise The Titanic
2012
Popular Opera Instrumentals
2011
The Symphonic Jean-michel Jarre
2006
Robin & Marian
2001
The Lion In Winter
2001
Zulu: The Film Music of John Barry
1999