John Lunn

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John Lunn (born 13 May 1956) is a Scottish composer, known for the music from the series Downton Abbey and for many other television and movie soundtracks. [1]

Contents

Early life and education

Lunn was born in May 1956. His father was a saxophonist in a jazz band. [2]

Lunn graduated from Glasgow University, where he studied 12-tone techniques. He has cited among his musical influences John Cage, Milton Babbitt, and György Ligeti, as well as Miles Davis. [3] Lunn was also a member of "systems music" band Man Jumping, an early 1980s "jazz-pop-worldbeat fusion ensemble", where he played bass and keyboard.". [4] [5]

He took a short course in computer music at MIT, [6] and assembled his own computerised compositional system. [3] He first used a Maselec MLA-2 tri-band compressor, with a Prism Sound ADA-8XR multichannel converter and an Orpheus FireWire interface, before settling on a Maselec MEA-2 analogue equaliser. [7]

Career

Television

He began composing for BBC Scotland in the late 1980s, with Beatrix: The Early Life of Beatrix Potter (1990) and The Gift (1991). His work also includes music for the television series Hamish Macbeth (1995-1997), Lorna Doone (2000), North Square (2000), Cambridge Spies (2003), Bleak House (2005), Hotel Babylon (2006), Little Dorrit (2008), Downton Abbey (2010-2015), Waking the Dead (2011), The White Queen (2013), Shetland (2013), Grantchester (2014), The Last Kingdom (2015), and Belgravia (2020). [1]

Opera

Lunn has written several operas. Two of them, Misper (1997) [8] and Zoë (2000) [9] (shown by Channel 4 [9] ), were written for Glyndebourne. [8] [9] Another, Mathematics of a Kiss, was written for the English National Opera. He wrote the 2006 operetta Tangier Tattoo , with librettist Stephen Plaice, again for Glyndebourne.

Lunn's violin concerto was premiered by Clio Gould and the London Sinfonietta at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.[ citation needed ]

Albums published

Awards

Lunn has won two Emmy Awards, in 2012 and 2013, both for the Outstanding Music Composition for A Series (Original Dramatic Score), each for an episode of Downton Abbey . He was nominated three other times: Outstanding Music Composition For A Miniseries, Movie Or A Special (Original Dramatic Score) for Little Dorrit in 2009; for Outstanding Music Composition for A Series (Original Dramatic Score), for Downton Abbey, Episode 8 in 2014; and Outstanding Music Composition for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special (Original Dramatic Score) for The White Queen in 2014. [10]

His music for Sky TV's Going Postal was winner of Best TV Score in the 2010 RTS Awards [1] and was nominated for a BAFTA and an Ivor Novello award. [1] The BBC adaptation of Dickens' Little Dorrit was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Outstanding Original Score. [1]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Composers: John Lunn". Cool Music Limited. Archived from the original on 3 April 2012. Retrieved 6 November 2011.
  2. Manwaring, Kurt (10 September 2019). "10 questions with John Lunn". From The Desk. Retrieved 7 February 2021.
  3. 1 2 Eskow, Gary (16 February 2017). "Composer John Lunn". Mixonline. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  4. Colin Larkin, ed. (2003). The Virgin Encyclopedia of Eighties Music (Third ed.). Virgin Books. p. 325. ISBN   1-85227-969-9.
  5. Donelson, Marcy (April 2020). "John Lunn : Biography & History". AllMusic. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  6. "At the intersection of Philip Glass and Coldplay: How Emmy-winning composer John Lunn created the sound of Downton Abbey". WFMT. 26 September 2019. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  7. Sillitoe, Susan (11 October 2013). "Prism Sound Helps Composer John Lunn Create His Unique Sound". Mixonline. Retrieved 7 February 2021.
  8. 1 2 "Misper". Glyndebourne Festival Opera. Archived from the original on 5 April 2012. Retrieved 6 November 2011.
  9. 1 2 3 "Zoë". Glyndebourne Festival Opera. Archived from the original on 5 April 2012. Retrieved 6 November 2011.
  10. "Emmy Awards, Nominations, and Wins, John Lunn". Television Academy. 2014. Retrieved 7 February 2021.