John Powell is one of Hollywood’s most in-demand composers, his music having graced more than 50 feature films. British-born, John has called the United States his home for the past fifteen years, during which time he has scored many top films, in addition to collaborating with fellow celebrated composers Hans Zimmer and Harry Gregson-Williams. He was nominated for an Oscar in 2011 for his score to Dreamworks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon, and among the many other animated features to which he has provided the score are Ice Age 2 and Ice Age 3, and Kung Fu Panda (with Hans Zimmer).
Powell has also worked on some of the most explosive action movies of the past several years, including all three of the Bourne movies (The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum) and duelling-assassins caper Mr and Mrs Smith. This year, Powell has scored Happy Feet 2 and Doctor Seuss’s The Lorax, and is currently working on the score for Ice Age 4: Continental Drift, which is expected to be one of the huge hits of the summer.
Naturally, John uses Sibelius for all of his movie projects.
“Given the extraordinary lateness of which I produce the music and the immense amount of work needed by essentially a small team of orchestrators, were it not for Sibelius’ simplicity, logic, and deftness, we would not be able to make our scoring deadlines,” he says. “Sibelius 7 is easy to use.”
For more information about John Powell and to check out his filmography, visit his Wikipedia page. Doctor Seuss’s The Lorax will open in the UK on 27 July 2012 (it played in the US in March), and Ice Age 4 will also be released this coming summer.