Grant Kirkhope


Grant Kirkhope is a British video game composer who is best known for his work at Rare, working on games such as Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64, GoldenEye 007, and Perfect Dark, among many others. Kirkhope has been nominated for various BAFTA, ASCAP, and IFMCA awards for his contributions to video game music.

Early life and education

Kirkhope was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on 10 July 1962, where his mother worked as a music hall dancer. Kirkhope's father was an avid music fan and exposed him to early influences such as Frank Sinatra and Glenn Miller. Kirkhope taught himself to play guitar at age 11 and is classically trained in the trumpet. Kirkhope was brought up in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire from the age of five, and attended King James's School. Kirkhope played in various bands after leaving the Royal Northern College of Music, including Zoot and the Roots along with the saxophonist Snake Davis. Kirkhope also spent many years as part of "the Big Bad Horns" which were part of UK rock band Little Angels. Kirkhope joined Rare in October 1995, he played for two bands called Syar and Maineeaxe where he played the guitar and already knew Robin Beanland, another Rare composer.

Career

Kirkhope is a BAFTA, ASCAP and IFMCA-nominated composer who has created the soundtrack for various video games. Kirkhope's score for Viva Piñata was nominated by BAFTA in the Original Score category in its 2007 awards.
' was nominated for Best Score for a Video Game or Interactive Media by the International Film Music Critics Association and in the Cue Awards 2012 for Best Overall Score, Best Video Game Score and Grant was also nominated for Best Break Out Composer.
Kirkhope was nominated in the 2015 ASCAP Composer’s Choice Awards for his work on “Civilization: Beyond Earth” and also won the Best Original Score for a Video Game or Interactive Media 2015 from the International Film Music Critics Association for the same score. ' also won Best Score: Video Game at the Cue Awards 2015. He was nominated in the 2016 ASCAP Composer’s Choice Awards for his work on Civilization: Beyond Earth – Rising Tide and was also nominated for Best Original Score for a Video Game or Interactive Media 2016 from the International Film Music Critics Association for the same score. Civilization: Beyond Earth – Rising Tide was also nominated for Best Score: Video Game at the Cue Awards 2016.

Work

Games

Film

Voice acting

Kirkhope was also involved in casting the voice actors for the Viva Piñata cartoon.

Discography