John E. Keane


John Elton Keane is a British BAFTA and BFI Award-winning film and television composer. He has been nominated for two British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards, for A Very British Coup in 1989 and Hornblower: The Even Chance in 1999.
Keane's many credits include the 1993 miniseries Tales of the City, the 1998 film Hideous Kinky and multiple instalments of Hornblower between 1998 and 2003.

Early years

Keane studied composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Edmund Rubbra, and piano with Geraldine Peppin. He went on to study sound recording and film music at the National Film and Television School. Here he scored numerous graduation films, and his successful career as a composer was launched in 1986 with his score for Careless Talk, winner of the BAFTA Short Film Award 1986.
Keane quickly established himself in the Film and Television Music industry in 1987 when he scored The Kitchen Toto directed by Harry Hook. The film won the Tokyo Grand Prize, and Keane won a prize for Best Sound Track at the "Festival International du Film et de la Jeunesse". The same year he won the 1987 British Film Institute prize for Young Composer of the Year.

Film and TV

Keane's first television commission was for the highly acclaimed serial A Very British Coup for director Mick Jackson. The serial received many awards, including an International Emmy for Best Drama, 5 BAFTA Awards and a BAFTA Nomination for Best Music, Best Drama Series from Broadcasting Press Guild, and at the Banff Festival, Toronto.
Since then Keane has written the music for a host of high-profile television drama, including Selling Hitler, Tales From The City, A Pinch of Snuff, Faith, Hearts and Minds, Kavanagh QC, Plotlands, Far from the Madding Crowd, Wives and Daughters, The Last of the Blonde Bombshells, Monsignor Renard, Anna Karenina, The Russian Bride, Gunpowder, Treason & Plot, Mansfield Park starring Billie Piper, the Emmy Award-winning Hornblower and Heroes and Villains: "Shogun and Cortes".
Keane has written music for a number of award-winning documentary series, including Molly Dineen's BBC The Ark, winner of a BAFTA Award, and The House, about London's Royal Opera House. He has also written music for a number of feature films, including four films directed by Gilles McKinnon – Small Faces, Trojan Eddie, Hideous Kinky starring Kate Winslet, and Tara Road.
Recent credits include the BBC crime drama series Case Histories, starring Jason Isaacs, and Inspector George Gently, starring Martin Shaw.

Credits

Feature film

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1989
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