Stephen Gallagher
Emmy Award-winning composer and music editor Stephen Gallagher has over two decades of experience in the film and television industry.
Selected Credits
In 2026, Stephen won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Direction and Composition alongside composer David Long for their score to ‘Secrets at Red Rocks’, marking a significant milestone in his career as a composer.
Throughout his career, Stephen has worked on projects ranging from global blockbusters alongside industry legends such as Peter Jackson, Brian Eno, Ed Sheeran, Nick Cave and Junkie XL to Emmy-winning television productions, independent documentaries and contemporary theatre and dance. In his own words, he is excited by “making sounds and worlds out of sound”.
Renowned for his deep understanding of film scoring, Stephen crafts music that resonates with the heart of each story, seamlessly blending sound and emotion to create the perfect soundtrack. In 2024 he composed the score to Kenji Kamiyama’s epic anime film ‘The Lord Of The Rings: The War Of The Rohirrim’. He received nominations at The 2025 World Soundtrack Awards and the International Film Critics’ Awards for his work on the soundtrack. Previously his Middle-earth composing experiences were writing the iconic songs ‘Blunt The Knives’ and ‘The Torture Song’ for ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’.
In 2021, he received a nomination for Best Original Score at the International Sound and Film Music Festival for the documentary short ‘Kimana Tuskers’. In 2018, he was nominated for an APRA Silver Scroll Award for his original score for the feature film ‘Human Traces’.
Stephen also contributed additional music to accompany Brian Eno’s original score for ‘The Lovely Bones’ and has composed original scores for notable films, including the multi-award-winning Canadian horror-comedy ‘Puppet Killer’ and the documentary ‘Conquering Cancer’. Alongside David Long, his collaborator on the Emmy-winning ‘Secrets at Red Rocks’ he co-composed the score for ‘INSiDE’ and three seasons of the BBC children’s show ‘Mystic’.
Stephen’s music editorial is known for being highly sensitive to storytelling. He has been nominated three times for an MPSE Golden Reel Award. In 2022 he won both a Golden Reel and an Emmy Award for his work on Peter Jackson’s critically acclaimed documentary series “The Beatles: Get Back”.
His credits as Music Editor include the box-office successes ‘The Hobbit trilogy’: ‘The Battle Of The Five Armies’, ‘The Desolation Of Smaug’, ‘An Unexpected Journey’, and the sci-fi smash hit ‘District 9’. He was Supervising Music Editor for ‘The Lovely Bones’ and the documentary ‘West Of Memphis’.