Grant Kirkhope

Grant Kirkhope
Background information
Birth name Grant Kirkhope
Born (1962-07-10) July 10, 1962
Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
Genres Video game music
Occupation(s) Composer
Instruments Keyboards, guitar, trumpet
Years active 1995–present
Website www.grantkirkhope.com

Grant Kirkhope (born 10 July 1962) is a British BAFTA and IFMCA nominated composer, known for writing the soundtracks to various well known games.

Early life and education

Kirkhope was brought up in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire and attended King James's School (like his fellow trumpet player and good friend, Simply Red's Tim Kellett). Kirkhope played in various bands after leaving the Royal Northern College of Music, including Zoot and the Roots along with the saxophonist, Snake Davis. Kirkhope also spent many years as part of "the Big Bad Horns" which were part of UK rock band Little Angels. At the age of 33 he was employed by Rare. Before joining Rare, in October 1995, he played for two bands called Syar and Maineeaxe where he played guitar, and already knew Robin Beanland, another Rare composer. Kirkhope's music featuring an electric guitar is played on an Ernie Ball/Musicman EVH given to him by Eddie Van Halen. Kirkhope's skills on guitar can be heard on Killer Instinct Gold, Perfect Dark, Star Fox Adventures or Grabbed by the Ghoulies.

Career

When Kirkhope joined Rare, due to being the "new boy", he was assigned to convert the music of Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest for Donkey Kong Land 2, he finished the conversion in December of the same year. He was later asked by Graeme Norgate to finish composing the music for GoldenEye 007 so that Norgate could focus on Blast Corps. Norgate taught Kirkhope how to get music and sound effects into the Nintendo 64. His work on the game eventually reached Tim Stamper and Gregg Mayles, who reassigned him to compose for Project Dream with David Wise, who left the project shortly after to work on Diddy Kong Racing.[1] On July 14, 2008, Kirkhope stated in his MySpace blog that he was resigning from Rare to become a freelancer composer.

Big Huge Games was acquired by 38 Studios in May 2009, the company founded by Curt Schilling. Kirkhope went on to compose both the music and sound effects for Big Huge Games's million selling role-playing game Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, which was released in February 2012.[2] On May 24, 2012, 38 Studios announced that it would be laying-off its entire staff, including Kirkhope and the employees of Big Huge Games, due to the effects of the financial downturn.[3] In June 2012, Grant Kirkhope played at several festivals with fellow members of the reunited band Little Angels.

In August 2012, he moved to Los Angeles, California to further pursue his music career. In June 2013, Kirkhope was signed to the prestigious The Gorfaine/Schwartz Agency, Inc. in Los Angeles. In 2013, Kirkhope appeared as a guest on the webseries, Game Grumps, where he talked about his work at Rare.[4]

Several of Kirkhope's compositions are included in the Classic FM Hall of Fame.[5] At EGX Rezzed 2015, it was confirmed by the development team at Playtonic Games that Kirkhope will be involved with co-producing the soundtrack for their new 3D platforming video game, Yooka-Laylee.

Works

Title Year System Notes
Killer Instinct 2/Gold 1996 Arcade, Nintendo 64 Live guitar and trumpet
Donkey Kong Land 2 Game Boy Conversion of David Wise's Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest soundtrack
GoldenEye 007 1997 Nintendo 64 With Graeme Norgate and Robin Beanland
Project Dream Canceled SNES, Nintendo 64 Revamped into Banjo-Kazooie
Banjo-Kazooie 1998 Nintendo 64
Donkey Kong 64[6] 1999
Banjo-Tooie 2000
Perfect Dark With David Clynick and Graeme Norgate[7]
Star Fox Adventures 2002 GameCube Live guitar
Grabbed by the Ghoulies 2003 Xbox
Viva Piñata 2006 Xbox 360, Windows With Steve Burke
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts2008 Xbox 360 With Robin Beanland and David Clynick
Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning 2012 Xbox 360, Windows, PlayStation 3 With Mark Cromer
Fart Cat! iOS
CityVille 2 Zynga, Facebook
Desktop Dungeons 2013 Windows, OS X With Danny Baranowsky
Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse Windows, Xbox 360/Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation 3/PlayStation Network Remastering of the original game's soundtrack by Shigenori Kamiya,
along with original compositions.
Puzzle Charms 2014 Zynga, Facebook
Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Civilization: Beyond Earth Windows With Geoff Knorr, Michael Curran and Griffin Cohen
The Enchanted Cave 2 Mobile
Civilization: Beyond Earth - Rising Tide 2015 Windows With Geoff Knorr and Griffin Cohen
Hex Heroes[8] 2016 Wii U, Linux, OS X, Windows
Ghostbusters Windows, Xbox One, PlayStation 4
Yooka-Laylee Windows, OS X, Linux, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Wii U With David Wise and Steve Burke
A Hat in Time TBA Windows, OS X With Pascal Michael Stiefel
Lobodestroyo Multiple Platforms With Cooper Goodwin

Kirkhope also voiced several characters in the games he has worked on, such as Mumbo Jumbo, Bottles, Jamjars and the Jinjos in the Banjo-Kazooie series, and Donkey Kong in Donkey Kong 64.[9][10][11]

Awards and honors

References

  1. ↑ "Grant Kirkhope.Dream Music Compositions". Grantkirkhope.com. Retrieved 13 May 2013.
  2. ↑ "Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning launching February 7, 2012". Joystiq. 16 August 2011. Retrieved 16 August 2011.
  3. ↑ "38 Studios Lays Off Entire Staff – IGN". Uk.ign.com. 24 May 2012. Retrieved 13 May 2013.
  4. ↑ Ponce, Tony (2013-03-31). "Ex-Rare composer reaffirms dream to make Banjo 3". Destructoid. Retrieved 2016-02-03.
  5. ↑ http://halloffame.classicfm.com/2015/chart/p/list-all/
  6. ↑ "Donkey Kong 64 Video Game Music Compositions". Grant Kirkhope. Archived from the original on 18 September 2010. Retrieved 18 September 2010.
  7. ↑ "Perfect Dark Dual CD Soundtrack".
  8. ↑ Schulenberg, Thomas (30 March 2014). "Hex Heroes is a five-player real-time strategy game for Wii U". Joystiq. Retrieved 18 April 2014.
  9. ↑ "Grant Kirkhope. Video Game Composer, Banjo Kazooie Video Games Music Compositions". Grantkirkhope.com. Retrieved 13 May 2013.
  10. ↑ "Grant Kirkhope. Video Game Composer. Donkey Kong 64 video game music compositions". Grantkirkhope.com. Retrieved 13 May 2013.
  11. ↑ "Grant Kirkhope Interview Part 2 – DK Rap featured". Nintendo Nation.net. 14 September 2012. Retrieved 13 May 2013.
  12. ↑ "Game Music :: Video Game Music News". Squareenixmusic.com. Retrieved 13 May 2013.

External links

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