John Powell

John Powell was born in London, England in 1963. As a child, he took violin lessons and then learned viola. He studied at the Trinity College of Music. Later he learned about rock and jazz and played in a soul band called the Faboulistics. After he completed his college degree, he went to work writing music for commercials. His next job was as a composer’s assistant working on music for movies. He wrote his first film score in 1990. Powell liked writing for movies and in 1995 helped start a company that provided music for independent movies and commercials in England and France. In 1997, Powell moved to Los Angeles and started writing music for Hollywood movies. Early on he worked on some movies with another British composer, Harry Gregson-Williams, including the movie Shrek. After a few movies working with someone else, Powell began writing the scores himself. Since then, he has composed the music for many movies including Ice Age, Kung Fu Panda, Bolt, X-Men:  The Last Stand, and How to Train Your Dragon. In 2014, Powell decided to take a break from writing film scores to write a piece for the concert hall. He wrote several concert works during his sabbatical including a forty-five minute oratorio in remembrance of the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I. The work, called “A Prussian Requiem,” was premiered in London in 2016. He has gone back to writing film music, recently completing the music for Solo:  A Star Wars Story and How to Train Your Dragon:  The Hidden World. Over his career, Powell has been nominated for many awards, including an Academy Award for How to Train Your Dragon. 

Powell combined all of the instruments in the orchestra to help tell the story in How to Train Your Dragon. He uses the brass and percussion for excitement and uses calm strings for quieter parts. To make the orchestra more colorful he added penny whistle and bagpipes and used some Scottish and Irish melodies. Powell was able to use all these instruments and melodies to create sounds that help tell the story of fantastic flying dragons.