John Altman is a film composer, music arranger, orchestrator, conductor and saxophonist. Among the 50 plus movies he composed, arranged and orchestrated for are Titanic (period music), Monty Python’s Life of Brian and Goldeneye, winning a BAFTA Award for Hear My Song and a Golden Globe for orchestrating Sheltering Sky and Léon: The Professional. He also won an Emmy for his score for RKO281, was nominated for Roman Spring of Mrs Stone and received a nomination for the Golden Reel award for Little Voice. His recent work includes the last James Bond movie No Time To Die, for which he arranged and conducted at the request of Hans Zimmer.
In addition to writing a 100-minute score for the silent movie Shooting Star for the London Film Festival Gala, John has his name as an arranger on 19 platinum records, including George Michael’s album “Faith”, which won several GRAMMYs in 1989 including Album of the Year, and was nominated for the Rutles film All You Need Is Cash. He wrote for Simple Minds, Barry White, Tina Turner, Björk, Diana Ross, Tom Jones, Pretenders, Rod Stewart, Michael Jackson and has scored over 4,000 commercials worldwide to boot.
As a jazz musician he has led his big band in the UK, USA and Australia and played with Chet Baker, Slim Gaillard, Quincy Jones, Bud Freeman, Les McCann and many others. He has four Lifetime Achievement Awards and an honorary doctorate in music from the University of Sussex. His autobiographyHidden Man was published in February 2022 by Equinox Books.
