Hanan Townshend

Hanan Townshend is known for his poetic orchestral scoring and cinematic commercial scores. Townshend is a frequent collaborator with legendary director Terrence Malick, breaking into film with his piano arrangements for Palme d’Or winning film, The Tree of Life starring Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain. After his work on this film, Townshend scored Malick’s To the Wonder (2014), featuring Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams, collaborating with additional music composer and acclaimed record producer, Daniel Lanois. Townshend then went on to score Malick’s Knight of Cups (2015), starring Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, and Christian Bale, as well as his IMAX documentary Voyage of Time (2016). He continues to collaborate with Malick, contributing original music and arrangements to upcoming projects. Other features he has scored include Carlo Hintermann’s The Book of Vision (2020), the opening film for Venice Critics’ Week starring Charles Dance, Oscar-nominated director Henry Alex Rubin’s Semper Fi (2019), and Julio Quintana’s breakout Netflix film, Blue Miracle (2021).

Townshend has also gained acclaim for his work in documentary film, including collaborations with Academy Award-winning director, Megan Mylan’s film Simple As Water (2021), the Emmy-award winning docu-series Outcry (2020), the Emmy and Critics Choice award-winning Disgraced (2017) directed by Pat Kondelis, and Drew Xanthopolous’ Tribeca competition documentary and Apple TV+ film Fathom (2021).

In the world of commercial music, Townshend scores commercials for brands such as Apple, Nike, Guinness, and Volvo, which have aired during high profile slots such as the Super Bowl, Apple Keynotes, and the Oscars. He frequently teams with three-time Academy award-winning cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, scoring his ethereal work for brands such as Vanity Fair, Apple, and Kind.

Townshend’s music is described as poetic, spiritual, and sensitive. He enjoys approaching film music from innovation, writing scores as languages of internal atmospheres. His collaborations with directors and producers are often translations of intangible emotive experiences that become part of the deeper exploration of character and subject storytelling. Townshend often pulls from the natural soundscape of his upbringing on a remote country farm overlooking the ocean, in which he was immersed as he studied music from the age of six. 

Townshend is a New Zealand-born composer and pianist, graduating from the New Zealand School of Music at Victoria University, and also studying film scoring and pop music production at the University of Texas. He works on international projects from his studio in Austin, Texas.