Profile
John Young (born 1995) is a London-based composer who specialises in music for film. He read music at the University of Oxford, having to turn down a Foundation Scholarship to study Composition at the Royal College of Music.
He has composed for Channel 4's Escape to the Chateau, and for several trailers, short films and theatrical productions and dozens of independent compositions, mostly programmatic. His compositional style draws primarily from other film music, classical music and jazz; often he infuses his scores with electronic elements.
Working for London-based company A-Mnemonic Music Productions in 2018, John learned the art of “music that sells things”. It furthered his expertise in creating concise musical and sonic material, in particular for commercial branding and advertisements. This included designing audio logos of around three seconds, matching them scrupulously to the nuances of video content. This led onto work for other production companies, notably Phase Music and Finger Music.
He is also a pianist and teacher (99% LTCL diploma distinction, National Youth Jazz Collective, Pianoman scholarship), violinist (Junior Royal Academy of Music, Oxford University Orchestra, National Children's Orchestra), keyboard-synth player, and founding member of five-piece jazz-electronic band Wandering Wires.
In first person
"The first thing I worked out on piano, as a small boy, was the theme from Samuel Whiskers. Growing up I had a penchant for working out themes and improvising, experimenting with combinations of chords and notes the way a child learns to mix colours, and thereby nurturing my aural skills. As a seven-year-old I remember the evocative sound of John Barry's "Dances With Wolves" filling the car during a striking sunset. It was on a compilation CD of some of Barry's best film themes, and his music, along with James Horner's score for The Mask of Zorro (my childhood favourite), was a foundation for my desire to become a film composer seven years later.
There is nothing as fulfilling as creating — as transforming a blank canvas into a work of art, imparting a piece of yourself into a sensory and intellectually- stimulating object of beauty — and then experiencing what you have made, and sharing it with others. I find that music is the best form of creating; it reaches right into our emotional core. It tells a story; it creates emotions, atmospheres and worlds — more vividly than any other form of art. A similar ideal is shared by any good director, whose film heightens these qualities in the score, providing more specificity, humanity and narrative for an otherwise more abstract medium. Everything is then amplified by the adrenaline-charged cinematic platform: the dark room full of other people, the big screen, surround sound, full focus, a thrilling HD audio-visual experience that casts the illusion of transporting you through space and time. Film and music are the perfect symbiosis."