British composer (born 1982)
Musical artist
Stephen Barton (born 17 September 1982[1]) is a Grammy-nominated and SCL Award winning British composer. He 🫰 splits his time between his native London and Los Angeles. He has composed the music for dozens of major film, 🫰 television and video game projects.
Early life [ edit ]
As a child, Barton became a cathedral chorister at the age of 🫰 eight in the world-renowned Winchester Cathedral Choir, touring internationally with the choir in the United States, Australia and Europe, including 🫰 concerts in Sydney Opera House, the Royal Albert Hall, and Carnegie Hall; and performing on numerous albums and television broadcasts. 🫰 He subsequently won a prestigious Department for Education specialist music scholarship to study piano and composition at Wells Cathedral School,[2] 🫰 one of the oldest extant schools in the world. At 18, he became an assistant to the composer Harry Gregson-Williams, 🫰 working for him on numerous film scores before branching out to form his own company in 2009.[citation needed]
Video games [ 🫰 edit ]
In 2007, he wrote the score for the highly regarded Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (with Harry Gregson-Williams).[3] 🫰 He teamed up with the same developers at their new company Respawn Entertainment to work on the music for Titanfall,[4] 🫰 an online-only multiplayer shooter. Barton also created the music for the 2024 sequel, Titanfall 2. In 2024, he composed the 🫰 original music for Titanfall’s battle royale sibling, Apex Legends, including the now iconic four note theme motif, and has continued 🫰 to compose over three hours of music for all subsequent seasons of the game.
In 2024, he also co-composed the score 🫰 for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which won the Society of Composers and Lyricists inaugural award for Best Original Game 🫰 Score, as well as Music of the Year from G.A.N.G., amongst other awards. In 2024, he composed the score for 🫰 the sequel, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.
Film and television [ edit ]
Barton's film work include scores for Unlocked, Cirque du Soleil: 🫰 Worlds Away, Jennifer's Body, Tom Dolby and Tom Williams' debut feature Last Weekend, Line of Fire, Mrs. Palfrey at the 🫰 Claremont and the BAFTA nominated thriller Exam. He also contributed music for the Narnia and Shrek franchises (including the "Fairy 🫰 Godmother Song" from Shrek 2) as well as Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven, Tony Scott's Man On Fire and Ben 🫰 Affleck's Gone, Baby Gone.
In television, he scored two seasons of the highly regarded TV adaptation of 12 Monkeys, and has 🫰 collaborated extensively on nature documentaries with Natural History New Zealand and the Discovery Channel.
Chris Prynoski, the animator behind the hallucination 🫰 scene in Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, heard Barton's score for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and asked him to 🫰 score Titmouse's animated series G.I. Joe: Resolute,[5] which led to a further collaboration on a series for Disney, Motorcity.[6] In 🫰 addition to those he also co-wrote the music for MTV's Disco Destroyer,[7] a project conceived by Scott Mosier, Jim Mahfood 🫰 and Joe Casey and animated by Titmouse, composing the score with Chevy Metal and My Ruin guitarist Mick Murphy. Subsequently, 🫰 he scored Titmouse's Niko and the Sword of Light series for Amazon Studios.
In 2024, Barton served as the primary composer 🫰 for season three of Star Trek: Picard, which was released in 2024. He was the sole composer for the first 🫰 six episodes of the season and shared composing duties with Frederik Wiedmann for the final four episodes. Barton reused themes 🫰 and styles from many prior Star Trek composers, notably including Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner, combining them with his own 🫰 original music.[8]
Other work [ edit ]
Barton has collaborated frequently with Sir Anthony Hopkins since producing the soundtrack for the film 🫰 Slipstream in 2006. He produced the Decca album "Composer", which topped the UK Classical charts for a month in 2012,[9][10] 🫰 as well as collaborating with Hopkins on the production of "And The Waltz Goes On" with André Rieu, which won 🫰 the Classic FM "Album Of The Year" award in the Classic Brit Awards 2012.[11] As a pianist he has performed 🫰 extensively as a soloist with numerous orchestras including the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Symphony,[12] City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and 🫰 the Brussels Philharmonic, as well as on numerous movie soundtracks and diverse albums including Hybrid's I Choose Noise[13] and playing 🫰 the mellotron on a cover of Snowblind for Fireball Ministry's eponymously titled album in 2010.
He is recognized as a leading 🫰 voice and expert in the emerging field of spatial and immersive audio, has consulted on the subject to the BBC 🫰 and Qualcomm, is a committee member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and a founder member of 🫰 the Abbey Road Studios Spatial Audio Forum.
Discography [ edit ]
Film scores
Other credits
Television
Video Games
