Download my resume

Alexandra Harwood is a BAFTA Cymru Award-winning composer, whose films have screened worldwide. Alexandra completed scoring the Drama-Comedy series ‘All Creatures Great and Small’ for Channel 5 and PBS Masterpiece, starring Samuel West, Dame Diana Rigg, Rachel Shenton and Nicholas Ralph. Prior to this composed scores for the Ballet ‘Geisha’ for the Northern Ballet, ‘Thatcher: A Very British Revolution’ BBC Documentary Series and Mike Newell’s feature film, ‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society’ starring Lily James, Michiel Huisman, Glen Powell and Sir Tom Courtenay.

Additional work include ‘New Labour’ (working title) – a BBC five part series that follows ‘Thatcher: A very British Revolution’.

Alexandra is a classically trained composer. After graduating from the Royal College of Music (Dip Mus) and The Juilliard School (MA), she was Composer in Residence for the Juilliard Drama Division, during which time she wrote music for theatre productions in the US and UK and worked with actors including Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay, Laura Linney, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Michael Stuhlbarg, Tim Nelson and Audra MacDonald. Amongst numerous commissions that have been performed worldwide are four pieces for iMusicanti’s St John’s Smith Square 2018 concert series, ’Automatic Flesh’, for Ballet Rambert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, ‘The Happy Prince’ (cantata for soloists, choir and orchestra), St John’s Smith Square, London; ‘I Hear a Drum’ (voice and percussion) for Audra MacDonald, Avery Fisher Hall, NY; ‘Sonatina’, The National Flute Convention chosen repertoire, 2009 and 2018, USA; ‘Theme and Variations’ written for Sir Ronald Harwood’s 70th Birthday, performed in the presence of HRH The Prince of Wales.

Success in theatre and concert work led to Alexandra to take an MA in film composition at the National Film and Television School, which was the start of her career as a film composer. Her music for film has won awards and nominations with the British Animation Awards-Best Sound and Music (Winner 2018) , BAFTA Cymru (Winner 2015), BIFA (2013), Anima Mundi, Edinburgh Film Festival, IDFA and Locarno.

Other film and television work includes scores for feature film ‘The Escape’ starring Gemma Arterton and Dominic Cooper (2017), ‘Growing Up Wild’, feature documentary for Disney/Netflix USA (2016), ‘A Celebration of Harry Potter’ Warner Bros. Orlando USA, Neck and Neck animation for MewLab Winner British Animation Awards Best Sound/Music 2018, ‘Dancing in Circles’, which was awarded the BAFTA Cymru Best Short Award (2015); ; ‘Z1’ directed by Gabriel Gauchet – winner of the Best Short Film at the British Independent Film Awards 2014 and received a Locarno Award nomination in 2013; BBC documentary ‘Girlfriend in a Coma’, directed by Annalisa Piras; BBC ‘ideas’ animations , Channel 5 series ‘The Secret Life of Puppies and Kittens’; Channel 4/Animal Planet US feature documentary ‘Yeti or Not?’; BBC4 documentary series ‘What a Performance –  Pioneers of Popular Entertainment’; ‘No Man’s Land’, which won Best International Documentary at the Tehran International Short Film Festival, and received an IDFA nomination and broadcast DN2 Denmark; ‘Kids Say’, an animation TV series broadcast in Hong Kong in 2014; short ‘The Substitute’ which was screened at the Cannes Film Festival 2015; and ‘NightDare’ which was nominated for several Royal Television Society Awards, including Best Sound and Music in 2015.

Album release: ‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society’ – Original Soundtrack. Decca Records 2018

Member of The Ivors Academy, BAFTA, BIFA, PRS, AWFC

 

Prizes, Awards and Fellowships include:

  • BAA British Animation Awards- Best Music Neck and Neck 2018
  • BAFTA Crew Member Award- 2017
  • BAFTA Cymru, Dancing in Circles Best Short 2015
  • MPSE Golden Reel Award Nominee, Best Music, First Light 2013
  • BIFA, Z1 Best Short 2013
  • Beaconsfield Film Society Scholar
  • Best Composer, UnderWire Film Festival 2011
  • The Cobbett and Hurlstone Prize for Composition
  • The United Music Publishers Ltd. Prize for an outstanding composition Student
  • Fellowship in Composition at Tanglewood Music Festival
  • Foundation for the Arts Award, NY
  • Boulez Fellow, LA
  • Henry Mancini Prize for Composition, LA