John Hardy is a British composer for live performance, film, television and radio drama. He is born in the United Kingdom in 1957 and studies music and composition at Oxford and the Guildhall.

Work in theatre, film and broadcast

Hardy works with theatre and dance companies including Cardiff Lab and Brith Gof, and writes and produces music for theatre productions, films, television projects and radio dramas. His credits include A Clockwork Orange, Under Milk Wood, In Parenthesis, The Sicilian Expedition, Stardust, Sunbathing In The Rain and How I Live Now.

Orchestral and vocal music

His orchestral works include Fever, written for the Welsh Proms, and Blue Letters From Tanganyika, commissioned by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. That work is performed five times by the orchestra and broadcast several times on BBC Radio 3.

His choral and vocal music includes De Profundis, commissioned by Westminster Abbey Choir, BBC Singers and London Brass; two chamber operas for Music Theatre Wales; and a community opera on the 1797 French Invasion, commissioned by Welsh National Opera. In 2004, his R.S. Thomas cycle Not Darkness But Twilight is premiered, commissioned and performed twice by the BBC National Chorus of Wales, and later broadcast on Radio 3.

He also creates a substantial choral cycle, Spaces – Beyond the End of the World, commissioned by Vivace, Only Men Aloud and Serendipity, with support from the Arts Council of Wales and the PRS Foundation.

Awards and recognition

Hardy wins the BAFTA Cymru music award in 1994 for the Oscar-nominated film Hedd Wyn, receives a second BAFTA Cymru in 2003 for Fondue, Sex & Dinosaurs, and a third in 2008 for the drama series Y Pris. In 2006, he receives a Creative Wales Award from the Arts Council of Wales.

His music is described by listeners as heart-warming, incredibly moving and brilliant, and by critics as gripping and intensely theatrical, engrossing and unique, epic, and achingly beautiful.

Other projects and collaborations

Hardy takes part in unusual projects including a sound-and-light event in a ruined abbey, a three-hour work of narration, sound and music about the Carrlands of North Lincolnshire, and concerts by the John Hardy Ensemble, also known as The Hardy Syndicate.

He also contributes music to BBC1 documentaries on Ellen MacArthur, and is commissioned to compose one twelfth of a composite work for Music & Chance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall alongside the Pet Shop Boys, Will Gregory and Anne Dudley.

Recordings and availability

His music is available through his own website and through the label Ffin Records.