John Powell - Details

Biography

JOHN POWELL recently worked with Hans Zimmer on the score for DreamWorks' animated musical "The Road to El Dorado," and also composed the score for the romantic comedy "Forces of Nature," starring Sandra Bullock and Ben Affleck. He and Harry Gregson-Williams had earlier collaborated on the score for DreamWorks' computer animated hit "Antz."

Powell made his film scoring debut with John Woo's action thriller "Face/Off," starring John Travolta and Nicolas Cage. He also composed the score for the film "Endurance" about Olympic champion runner Haile Gebrselassie.

A native of England, Powell graduated from Trinity College of Music in London. In 1988, he landed a job composing music for commercials and television at London's Air-Edel Music. There he also made his first foray into feature films, assisting Patrick Doyle on "Into the West," and working as an electronic music programmer for Hans Zimmer on "White Fang." Leaving Air-Edel in 1995, he and fellow Trinity alumnus Gavin Greenway co-founded their own studio, where they scored over 100 commercials and independent films, as well as the opera "An Englishman, Irishman and Frenchman."

Moving to the United States, Powell scored the DreamWorks Television series "High Incident" and the pilot "For the People." In addition, he arranged songs written by Stephen Schwartz for DreamWorks' animated film "The Prince of Egypt."