James Hannigan FRSA (born 23 July 1971) is a multi-award winning British composer, sound designer, music producer and live event creative director. His work as a composer has included single or multiple entries in the multi-million selling Command & Conquer, Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, Dead Space, Warhammer, Wing Commander, Space Hulk, Evil Genius, Grand Prix and Theme Park game series; video games including Freelancer, RuneScape, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Dead Space 3, Transformers Universe, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, Republic: The Revolution, Sim Theme Park (UK title: Theme Park World), Wing Commander: Privateer 2: The Darkening, Conquest: Frontier Wars, Nintendo's Art Academy (video game), Reign of Fire, The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn's Quest, and others, along with television such as BBC America’s Primeval. He has also contributed music to EA Sports titles, such as those belonging to the FIFA and F1 series and his music has minimally been heard in games such as Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U and Saints Row 4. In the early years of his career, Hannigan worked as Composer for Electronic Arts Europe before basing his studio at Pinewood Studios in England for ten years between 1997 and 2007, where he sometimes worked as a Sound Designer on films such as Lost in Space alongside composing.
James Hannigan's other music credits include Audible's Audie Award winning Alien dramas (2016 - 2019), Unseen Academicals (Discworld 37) and the acclaimed BBC Radio 4 adaptations of Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens and Neverwhere. His music is heard in trailers and television shows, such as the BBC's Top Gear, Amazon's The Grand Tour, Netflix's 100 Humans and Floor is Lava, and Disney's The World According to Jeff Goldblum.
In March 2020, it was announced that James Hannigan would be scoring the DC Comics and Audible adaptation of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. In June 2020, Rebellion Developments announced that Hannigan would return to score Evil Genius 2.
James Hannigan's popular main theme to Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, "Soviet March" has garnered hundreds of millions of plays on YouTube and other streaming services.
On January 28th 2021, online entertainment news and media outlet Variety announced Seasons 2 and 3 of The Sandman, which will include scores by James Hannigan.