Michael Price (composer)


Michael Price is an English award-winning composer, producer, arranger and music editor.
He writes in full orchestral and electronic and contemporary idioms, and is a producer, arranger and programmer. He won an Emmy Award with David Arnold for the music for the BBC TV series Sherlock.

Career

The son of a physics and biology teachers, Price studied music at school, before starting his music career on the Tonmeister course at Surrey University, where he won the PRS composition prize in 1990. After writing a number of scores for contemporary dance in his early 20s, he became Musical Director of DNA Dance and Music, whose projects included the arts council funded chamber opera "All the Garden Gold", based on the life of William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelite movement.
Prices's first film work was in 1996, when he was invited by Michael Kamen to orchestrate and program electronic sounds for the Paramount film Event Horizon. This led to a 5-year working relationship encompassing a number of film scores in London, LA and Prague, and concerts in Berlin, New York, San Francisco and Geneva. Following the production of the score to Band of Brothers, Price was approached to music edit on ' for New Line Cinema.
Prior to work as a composer, Price worked as a music editor with films including Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Richard Curtis' Love Actually, ' and Nanny McPhee. As a music editor, Michael has been nominated for 4 MPSE Golden Reel Awards, winning in 2001 for The Fellowship of the Ring.
Price has also worked with fellow composer David Arnold since 2002, with whom he has written and arranged on a number of projects, including Edgar Wright's Hot Fuzz, The Inbetweeners Movie and The Inbetweeners 2. Price and Arnold co-composed the music for Sherlock, the BBC television series created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, that premièred on BBC1 on 25 July 2010. In 2015, they also co-composed the music for ITV's Jekyll and Hyde television series which premièred in October 2015.
Price composed the score for the film Wild Target, a romantic comedy. This commission followed Michael's score for Wild Child, Working Title's teen film released in the UK in 2009. In 2015 Michael scored the ITV crime drama Unforgotten.
In addition to composing for Zentropa's Dommeren and Slingshot Studios' Sugarhouse he scored two documentaries for producer and director Alfonso Cuarón; The Possibility of Hope, and Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine, both in 2007. Price met Cuarón when he scored additional music for the Academy Award winning feature Children of Men, working with Cuarón as music editor.
Price has worked with several music bodies and organisations, including the PRS and BASCA. In 2015 he was the chair of the BASCA Media Executive Committee and director of the BASCA board.
Beginning his career as a pianist and composer for contemporary dance, he has now established the Michael Price Trio and Ensemble to perform his own work in diverse venues across the world, including the Royal Albert Hall, London, the Casa da Musica, Porto, Reeperbahn Festival, Hamburg, and the Stadsschouwburg in Leuven. Michael's debut album, 'Entanglement' was released on the Erased Tapes label and includes performances by cellist Peter Gregson and soprano Ashley Knight, with piano and keyboards played by Michael. They met through mutual friends several years before the recording of Entanglement, and have toured the album together across Europe in the year after the release. Price became part of the Erased Tapes family when they heard Michael's string quartet EP, which was subsequently released by Erased Tapes under the name A Stillness.

Credits

Scores

2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
  • 7 Lives
  • "Wild Target"
  • "The Mountain Within"
2008
  • Wild Child
  • "Swan Song"
  • "Agent Crush"
  • Crooked House
  • "Outlaw Births "
2007
  • The Shock Doctrine
  • Hot Fuzz
  • Sugarhouse
  • The Possibility of Hope
  • Blind Date
  • Dreamcatcher
2006
  • Eight Percent
2005
  • Dommeren
2004
  • Some Things That Stay
2003
  • LD50 Lethal Dose
  • Senses
2002'
2010–
2006
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2018
2015
2013
2009
2008
2006
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997