Stephen Barton
Stephen Barton (born 17 September 1982) is a British composer who has lived and worked in Los Angeles since 2001. He has composed the music for dozens of major film, television and video game projects, including Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Apex Legends, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Titanfall, Titanfall 2.
Stephen Barton | |
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| Background information | |
| Born | 17 September 1982 Preston, England |
| Genres | Film scores |
| Occupation(s) | Composer |
| Website | www |
Early life
As a child, Barton became a cathedral chorister at the age of eight in the world-renowned Winchester Cathedral Choir, touring internationally with the choir in the United States, Australia and Europe, including concerts in Sydney Opera House, the Royal Albert Hall, and St Thomas Cathedral, New York; and performing on numerous albums and television broadcasts. He subsequently won a prestigious Department for Education specialist music scholarship to study piano and composition at Wells Cathedral School,[1] one of the oldest extant schools in the world. At 18 he moved to Los Angeles as assistant to the composer Harry Gregson-Williams, working for him on numerous film scores before branching out to form his own company in 2009.
Video games
In 2007, he wrote the score for the highly regarded first person shooter Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (with Harry Gregson-Williams).[2] He teamed up with the same developers at their new company Respawn Entertainment to work on the music for Titanfall,[3] an online-only multiplayer shooter. Barton also created the music for the 2016 sequel, Titanfall 2. In 2019 he composed the original music for Titanfall’s “battle royale” sibling, Apex Legends, including the now iconic four note theme motif, and has continued to compose over three hours of music for all subsequent seasons of the game.
In 2019 he also co-composed the score for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which won the Society of Composers and Lyricists inaugural award for Best Original Game Score, as well as Music of the Year from G.A.N.G., amongst other awards.
Film and television
Barton's film work include scores for Unlocked, Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away, Jennifer's Body, Tom Dolby and Tom Williams' debut feature Last Weekend, Line of Fire, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont and the BAFTA nominated thriller Exam. He also contributed music for the Narnia and Shrek franchises (including the "Fairy Godmother Song" from Shrek 2) as well as Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven, Tony Scott's Man On Fire and Ben Affleck's Gone, Baby Gone.
In television, he scored two seasons of the highly regarded TV adaptation of 12 Monkeys, and has collaborated extensively on nature documentaries with Natural History New Zealand and the Discovery Channel.
Chris Prynoski, the animator behind the hallucination scene in Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, heard Barton's score for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and asked him to score Titmouse's animated series G.I. Joe: Resolute,[4] which led to a further collaboration on a series for Disney, Motorcity.[5] In addition to those he also co-wrote the music for MTV's Disco Destroyer,[6] a project conceived by Scott Mosier, Jim Mahfood and Joe Casey and animated by Titmouse, composing the score with Chevy Metal and My Ruin guitarist Mick Murphy. Subsequently, he scored Titmouse's Niko and the Sword of Light series for Amazon Studios.
Other work
Barton has collaborated frequently with Sir Anthony Hopkins since producing the soundtrack for the film Slipstream in 2006. He produced the Decca album "Composer", which topped the UK Classical charts for a month in 2012,[7][8] as well as collaborating with Hopkins on the production of "And The Waltz Goes On" with André Rieu, which won the Classic FM "Album Of The Year" award in the Classic Brit Awards 2012.[9] As a pianist he has performed extensively as a soloist with numerous orchestras including the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Symphony,[10] City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and the Brussels Philharmonic, as well as on numerous movie soundtracks and diverse albums including Hybrid's I Choose Noise[11] and playing the mellotron on a cover of Snowblind for Fireball Ministry's eponymously titled album in 2010.
He is recognized as a leading voice and expert in the emerging field of spatial and immersive audio, has consulted on the subject to the BBC and Qualcomm, is a committee member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and a founder member of the Abbey Road Studios Spatial Audio Forum.
Discography
Film scores
| Year | Title | Director(s) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont | Dan Ireland | N/A |
| 2009 | The Six Wives of Henry Lefay | Howard Michael Gould | N/A |
| Exam | Stuart Hazeldine | Co-composed with Matthew Cracknell | |
| Jennifer's Body | Karyn Kusama | Co-composed with Theodore Shapiro | |
| 2012 | Dino Time | John Kafka Yoon-suk Choi |
Co-composed with Loren Gold |
| 2013 | Line of Duty | Bryan Ramirez | N/A |
| 2014 | 4 Minute Mile | Charles-Olivier Michaud | N/A |
| Last Weekend | Tom Dolby Tom Williams |
N/A | |
| 2017 | Unlocked | Michael Apted | N/A |
Other credits
Television
| Year | Programme | Network | Episode(s) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | G.I. Joe: Resolute | Adult Swim | 11 | N/A |
| 2012 | Motorcity | Disney XD | 16 | Theme music composed by Brendan Small |
| 2013 | Liquid Television | MTV | 1 | Composer for pilot episode only |
| 2015 - 2017 | Niko and the Sword of Light | Amazon Video | 14 | N/A |
| 2017 - 2018 | 12 Monkeys | Syfy | 16 | Co-composed with Bryce Jacobs, Paul Linford and Trevor Rabin |
Video Games
| Year | Title | Studio(s) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare | Activision Infinity Ward |
Theme music composed by Harry Gregson-Williams Nominated — Best Original Score for a Video Game or Interactive Media |
| 2010 | How to Train Your Dragon | Activision Étranges Libellules Griptonite Games |
N/A |
| 2014 | Titanfall | Electronic Arts Respawn Entertainment |
Nominated — NAVGTR Award for Best Original Dramatic Score, New IP |
| 2016 | Titanfall 2 | N/A | |
| 2019 | Apex Legends | N/A | |
| Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order | Co-composed with Gordy Haab | ||
References
- {{cite web https://wells.cathedral.school/composition/}}
- Van Zelfden, Alex (14 June 2012). "The Music of Call of Duty 4". IGN. Retrieved 11 December 2019.
- Jenkins, David (21 October 2013). "The music of Titanfall interview – the sound of the next gen". metro.co.uk. Associated Newspapers Limited. Retrieved 21 October 2013.
- "G.I. Joe: Resolute". Yojoe. VerticalScope Inc. Retrieved 11 December 2019.
- "Gamer Profile: Stephen Barton". Obsolete Gamer. Retrieved 11 December 2019.
- Dambrot, Shana Nys (17 October 2013). "Jim Mahfood: Frenetic Illustrations and Cosmic Comic Books". KCET. Public Media Group of Southern California. Retrieved 11 December 2019.
- "Anthony Hopkins Lives Out A Long-Deferred Musical Dream". NPR. 9 March 2012. Retrieved 11 December 2019.
- "Classic FM's Anthony Hopkins Interview – Part 1". Classic FM. Global Group. Retrieved 11 December 2019.
- "The Classic BRIT Awards 2012 with MasterCard — Winners". Classic BRITs. 2 October 2012. Archived from the original on 5 October 2012. Retrieved 3 October 2012.
- Kortals, Sabine (20 May 2007). "Composer, CSO take audience to the movies". denverpost.com. MediaNews Group, Inc. Retrieved 3 March 2014.
- "Hybrid Bio". MTV.com. Viacom International Inc. Archived from the original on 6 March 2014. Retrieved 11 December 2019.
External links
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