POWELL, John

PERSONAL

Education: Trinity College of Music, London, graduated, 1986.

Addresses:

Manager—Kraft–Engel Management, 15233 Ventura Blvd., Suite 200, Sherman Oaks, CA 91403.

Career:

Composer, musician, and song producer and arranger. Media Arts Group, creator of soundtracks for installation art pieces, 1985–86; Air Edel, London, assistant composer, 1988–95; Independently Thinking Music, founder (with Gavin Greenaway) and composer for advertising campaigns and films, beginning 1995; Media Ventures, affiliate, beginning 1997. Member of the musical group the Fabulistics.

Awards, Honors:

Villeurbane Film Festival Award, best music score, c. 1995, for Les escarpins sauvages; Film and Television Music Award, American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, top box office film, 1998, for Face/Off; Film and Television Music Award (with Harry Gregson–Williams), top box office film, and Annie Award nomination (with Gregson–Williams), International Animated Film Society, outstanding individual achievement for music in an animated feature production, both 1999, for Antz; Annie Award nomination (with others), outstanding individual achievement for music in an animated feature production, 2000, and Saturn Award nomination (with Hans Zimmer), Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, best music, 2001, both for The Road to El Dorado; Film and Television Music Award (with Gregson–Williams), top box office film, 2001, for Chicken Run; named composer of the year, Cinemusic awards, 2001; Annie Award (with Gregson–Williams), outstanding individual achievement for a music score for an animated feature production, 2001, Film and Television Music Award, top box office film, 2002, nomination for Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music (with Gregson–Williams), British Academy of Film and Television Arts, 2002, and Saturn Award nomination (with Gregson–Williams), best music, 2002, all for Shrek; Film and Television Music Award, top box office film, 2003, for The Bourne Identity; Film and Television Music Award, top box office film, 2004, for The Italian Job; Golden Satellite Award nomination (with David A. Stewart and Mick Jagger), International Press Academy, 2005, for Alfie.

CREDITS

Film Music Producer:

Endurance (documentary), Buena Vista, 1999.

Forces of Nature, DreamWorks SKG, 1999.

Film Music Performer:

"Playing with the Big Boys," The Prince of Egypt (animated), DreamWorks SKG, 1998.

Television Appearances; Specials:

Himself, Poultry in Motion: The Making of "Chicken Run," NBC, 2000.

WRITINGS

Film Composer:

Les escarpins sauvages (animated short film; also known as The Wild Heels), 1994.

Je suis ton chatiment (short film; also known as Mondokino), 1996.

Face/Off, Buena Vista/Paramount, 1997.

(With Harry Gregson–Williams) Antz (animated), DreamWorks SKG, 1998.

Additional music, The Thin Red Line (also known as La mince ligne rouge), Twentieth Century–Fox, 1998.

(With Hans Zimmer) Chill Factor, Warner Bros., 1999.

Endurance (documentary), Buena Vista, 1999.

Forces of Nature, DreamWorks SKG, 1999.

With Friends Like These …, Miramax, 1999.

(With Gregson–Williams) Chicken Run (animated; also known as C:R–1), DreamWorks SKG, 2000.

(With Zimmer) The Road to El Dorado (animated), DreamWorks SKG, 2000.

Evolution, DreamWorks SKG, 2001.

I Am Sam, New Line Cinema, 2001.

(Including song "Your Time Will Come") Just Visiting (also known as Les visiteurs en Amerique), Buena Vista, 2001.

Rat Race (also known as Course folle), Paramount, 2001.

(With Gregson–Williams; including song "It Is You I Have Loved") Shrek (animated), DreamWorks SKG, 2001.

Shrek in the Swamp Karaoke Dance Party (animated), DreamWorks SKG, 2001.

(Including song "Safe in My Arms") The Adventures of Pluto Nash (also known as Pluto Nash), Buena Vista, 2002.

The Bourne Identity (also known as Die Bourne Identitaet), Universal, 2002.

Drumline, Twentieth Century–Fox, 2002.

D–Tox (also known as Eye See You and Im Auge der Angst), Universal, 2002.

Two Weeks Notice, Warner Bros., 2002.

Agent Cody Banks (also known as L'agent Cody Banks), Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer, 2003.

(Including "The Beach Song") Gigli, Columbia, 2003.

(Including song "Thunder Struck") The In–Laws (also known as Ein Ungleiches Paar and Wild Wedding—Ein ungleiches Paar), Warner Bros., 2003.

The Italian Job (also known as Braquage a l'italienne), Paramount, 2003.

Paycheck, Paramount, 2003.

Alfie, Paramount, 2004.

The Bourne Supremacy (also known as Die Bourne Verschwoerung), Universal, 2004.

Mr. 3000, Buena Vista, 2004.

Theme music, Shrek 2 (animated), DreamWorks SKG, 2004.

Be Cool, Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer, 2005.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Twentieth Century–Fox, 2005.

Robots (animated), Twentieth Century–Fox, 2005.

Happy Feet (animated musical), Warner Bros., 2006.

Composer for Salinas, Canal Plus; and for The Tourist. Composer for the short film Raid gauloises; composer of songs used in various films.

Film Assistant Composer:

White Fang, Buena Vista, 1991.

Into the West, Miramax, 1993.

Much Ado about Nothing, Samuel Goldwyn, 1993.

Television Composer; Series:

Stay Lucky, Yorkshire Television, 1989–93.

High Incident, ABC, 1996–97.

Television Composer; Movies:

Human Bomb (also known as Die Menschliche Bombe), The Movie Channel, 1998.

Stealing Sinatra, Showtime, 2003.

Television Composer; Specials:

The Vanishing Rembrandts (documentary), BBC, c. 1992.

Television Composer; Pilots:

For the People, Lifetime, 2002.

Stage Composer:

Composer (with Gavin Greenaway) for An Englishman, an Irishman, and a Frenchman (opera), libretto by Michael Petry, produced in Bonn, Germany.

Soundtrack Albums:

Face/Off, Hollywood Records, 1997.

Antz, Angel Records, 1998.

Endurance, RCA, 1999.

Chicken Run, RCA, 2000.

Evolution, Varese Records, 2001.

Just Visiting, Varese Records, 2001.

Rat Race, Beyond Records, 2001.

Shrek, Varese Records, 2001.

The Bourne Identity, Varese Records, 2002.

I Am Sam, Varese Records, 2002.

Gigli, Varese Records, 2003.

The Italian Job, Varese Records, 2003.

Two Weeks Notice, Varese Records, 2003.

The Bourne Supremacy, Varese Records, 2004.

Paycheck, Varese Records, 2004.

OTHER SOURCES

Electronic:

Cinemusic Web Site,http://www.cinemusic.net, November 20, 2004.

Powell, John

Powell, John , American pianist, composer, and eth-nomusicologist; b. Richmond, Va., Sept. 6, 1882; d. Charlottesville, Va., Aug. 15, 1963. His father was a schoolteacher, and his mother an amateur musician. He received his primary musical education at home, then studied piano with F.C. Hahr, a pupil of Liszt. He subsequently entered the Univ. of Va. (B.A., 1901) and then went to Vienna, where he studied piano with Leschetizky (1902–07) and composition with Navrátil (1904–07). He gave successful piano recitals in Paris and London; returning to the U.S., he toured the country as a pianist, playing some of his own works. His most successful piece was Rapsodie nègre for Piano and Orch., inspired by Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness; Powell was the soloist in its first performance with the Russian Sym. Orch. (N.Y., March 23, 1918). The titles of some of his works disclose a whimsical propensity. Perhaps his most important achievement lies in ethnomusicology; he methodically collected rural songs of the South; was the organizer of the Va. State Choral Festivals and of the White Top Mountain Folk Music Festivals. A man of versatile interests, he was also an amateur astronomer, and discovered a comet.

Works

ORCH.: Piano Concerto (n.d.); Violin Concerto (1910); Rapsodie nègre for Piano and Orch. (1917; N.Y., March 23, 1918); In Old Virginia, overture (1921); Natchez on the Hill, 3 Virginian country dances (1932); A Set of 3 (1935); Sym. in A (1945; Detroit, April 23, 1947; substantially rev. version as Virginia Symphony, Richmond, Va., Nov. 5, 1951). CHAMBER : Sonate Virginianesque for Violin and Piano (1906); 2 string quartets (1907, 1922); Violin Sonata (1918); From a Loved Past for Violin and Piano (1930). Piano : 3 sonatas: Sonate psychologique, “on the text of St. Paul’s “The wages of sin is death’” (1905), Sonate noble (1908), and Sonata Teutonica (1905–13); In the South, suite (1906); At the Fair, suite (1907); In the Hammock for 2 Pianos, 8-Hands (1915); Dirge, sextet for 2 Pianos, 12-Hands (1928). VOCAL : Choral pieces, including the folk carol The Babe of Bethlehem (1934); songs, including 5 Virginian Folk Songs for Voice and Piano (1938).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire