Christopher Barnett
Christopher Barnett is a versatile and award-winning composer whose music spans feature films, documentaries, and television. His work blends orchestral, experimental, and textural scores, creating emotionally resonant sound worlds for compelling stories.
Selected Credits
His most recent music score credits include ‘The Marbles’, an upcoming documentary making its world premiere as the Opening Film at the Central Scotland Documentary Festival in 2025, ‘Yohanna’, an Indonesian drama which debuted at Rotterdam International Film Festival, exploring child labour, identity, and resilience, ‘Breaking Boundaries’, which chronicles the human resilience of a teenage rhythmic gymnast of Russian and African‑American heritage and ‘Joy Womack: The White Swan’, a moving portrait of the American ballerina who broke into Russia’s elite ballet world.
Barnett’s acclaimed score for ‘A Dose of Happiness’ (2019), based on Vesela Toteva’s memoir Downfall and Salvation, helped propel the film to become the number one box office hit in Bulgaria. The film also sparked national conversations on drug education, contributing to changes in government policy, a rare example of cinema influencing social reform.
He co-scored ‘Speer Goes to Hollywood’ (2020), an IDA, Best Score nominated documentary that delves into Albert Speer’s attempt to rehabilitate his image after WWII. His music for ‘Getting Away With Murder(s)’ (2021), a searing investigation into post-war justice, earned critical acclaim and saw the film named among The Guardian’s Top 20 Films of 2022.
Throughout 2017, illustrating his reach and arc of musical composition, he scored a range of projects from the hard-hitting Channel 4 documentary ‘Modern British Slavery’ to the adrenalin packed, multiaward winning ‘All The Wild Horses’, about the world’s longest and most dangerous horse race, covering 650 miles of wild Mongolian terrain which took Best Score at Jefferson State Flixx Festival 2018. He also scored the sci-fi short, ‘The Sound’, starring Joseph Mawle from Game of Thrones and Sienna Guillory, (Resident Evil: Apocalypse).
In the last quarter of 2017 and the beginning of 2018, Barnett finished scoring the Brexit themed documentary, ‘Postcards From The 48%’, featuring those who voted to Remain in the EU, the 48%, sourcing opinions and data from a wide geographical area across the UK and featuring known personalities including Sir Bob Geldof, Dame Joan Bakewell, Professor AC Grayling CBE and bestselling, award-winning author and screenwriter, Ian McEwan alongside a number of British MPs.
In 2016 Christopher scored the Edinburgh International Film Festival nominated documentary feature, ‘The First Film’, about Louis Le Prince, the very first person to shoot moving images on a camera. The documentary, narrated by Sarah Lancashire, garnered much media attention in the UK and the USA including media awards for Best Score & Best Composer UK.
Other credits include the BBC Films, BAFTA nominated comedy, ‘A Cock & Bull Story’, (with its British all-star cast of Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, Naomie Harris, Benedict Wong, Shirley Henderson, Kelly MacDonald, David Walliams, Gillian Anderson and Stephen Fry); the BBC Films’ bittersweet comedy Borrowed Time, (starring Phil Davis and Theo Barklem-Biggs), voted Best of The Fest at the 2013 Edinburgh International Film Festival, ‘Three Minute Moments’, a romantic comedy for which he composed an orchestral, jazz based score with songs and lyrics for vocal duet and the ALS themed documentary, ‘There’s a Hole in My Bucket’, narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch.
As well as composing orchestral and experimental scores rich in thematic or ambient textures, he has work published by the LCM Grade 8 piano syllabus, incidental music for theatre, corporate as well as ceremony music for The WIFTS Foundation International Visionary Awards, (held in London and Los Angeles).
He has also assisted colleagues as part of the music department recording at Air-Edel, Air Lyndhurst and Abbey Road Studios. In 2014, at the invitation of the United Arab Emirates, he played steel pans on tour with UFO Steelband, (Urban Fox Orchestra), commemorating the Emirates’ 44th year of independence.
Christopher holds a BMus from Roehampton Institute/Univ. of Surrey and an MMus from London College of Music in Composition.