first original film score recording on Chandos Movies

Adrian Johnston writes of the Brideshead Revisited recording: “I was thrilled to have an opportunity to work with Chandos - a label whose philosophy I have always liked, and whose CDs of Philip Lane’s fine film score reconstructions I have particularly admired. I know that to release a ‘non-historical’ film score was somewhat of a departure for the label, but I hope that Brideshead Revisited can somehow exist as a Chandos product, and perhaps open up the way for future film music collaborations.”

Born in Cumbria in 1961, Adrian Johnston read English at Edinburgh University but it was always clear to him that he would somehow make a career in music. That career really began with silent films, after a dalliance in the pop world (while still a student) as a drummer with the earlier incarnation of the band that became The Waterboys. He spent most of his twenties travelling around the world, accompanying new prints of silent films at film festivals, generally as a one-man band. From there, working in the theatre was a natural progression, and he wrote scores for plays at the Royal National Theatre and for the Royal Shakespeare Company. He was given a break into film by Michael Winterbottom, who in 1996 asked him to write the score for Jude. Subsequently he met Stephen Poliakoff, with whom he has collaborated on ten television plays and films, including the multi-award winning Shooting the Past, and Julian Jarrold, with whom he has worked for over 10 years on feature films like Becoming Jane and Kinky Boots. He won a prime time Emmy Award for his score for Charles Sturridge’s mini-series Shackleton in 2002 and a BAFTA for Poliakoff’s Capturing Mary in 2008.