Hannah Mary Peel (born 27 August 1985) is a Northern Irish Ivor Novello award-winning composer, producer and broadcaster. Her solo music is primarily electronic, synthesiser-based and often includes classical scoring and sound design, with references to the links between science, nature and music. She has scored music for television, film, theatre and dance, including her Emmy-nominated score to the documentary Game of Thrones: The Last Watch,[1] and the British science fiction TV series The Midwich Cuckoos which won Peel an Ivor Novello award in 2023.[2]
Peel releases her solo records on her own imprint label, My Own Pleasure Records. This includes her 2021 Mercury Music Prize nominated Fir Wave,[3]Awake But Always Dreaming,[4] and Mary Casio: Journey to Cassiopeia.[5]
Peel has been a regular weekly broadcaster on BBC Radio 3's Night Tracks since 2019.[6]
Aside from her solo work, she has worked with collaborators on projects including orchestrations and conducting for Paul Weller, an album written for the British Paraorchestra,[7] an album with the poet Will Burns, and as a member of the psychogeography indie rock group The Magnetic North and the electronic music group John Foxx and the Maths.
Early life
Peel was born in Craigavon, Northern Ireland, on 27 August 1985.[8] When she was eight years old, her family moved to Barnsley in South Yorkshire.[9] Her father was an amateur folk musician, and she joined him in musical gatherings, including holidays in County Donegal, Republic of Ireland.[5] She enrolled in the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts at age 18. There, she studied violin, trombone and piano.[8]
Music career
After graduation from LIPA, Peel stayed in Liverpool as a session musician, recording and playing live for various artists including David Ford, Laura Groves and The Unthanks. In 2007, Peel musically directed King Cotton starring John Henshaw, Israel Oyelumade, Paul Anderson and Cornelius Macarthy. The play opened at The Lowry, Salford, United Kingdom, on 12 September 2007, before moving to the Liverpool Empire Theatre from 25 September 2007.
In 2008, Peel was awarded a grant from the Liverpool Capital of Culture to curate and produce a large scale audio visual festival called AV08. It featured commissioned collaborations from artists from New York, London and Liverpool utilising large scale projections onto the Mersey Tunnel Air Vent.
In 2009 Peel released her first EP Rebox on vinyl with Static Caravan. The record featured remixes of famous 80's pop songs, remixed onto a whole punched music box and sung by Peel. The record sold out and has since been used in TV shows as American Horror Story.
Peel moved to London in 2010 to record her debut album The Broken Wave with Mike Lindsay of Tunng. During touring of the album she joined The Magnetic North who released albums in 2012 and 2016 on Full Time Hobby. Peel continued to work as a session musician, solo artist and composer during this time.
Her solo albums include: Mary Casio: Journey to Cassiopeia, written for colliery brass band and synthesiser; Awake But Always Dreaming, written after witnessing her grandmother's descent into Alzheimer's disease; and her 2021 Mercury-nominated album Fir Wave.
In 2018, Peel arranged strings and woodwind for Paul Weller's 2018 album True Meanings. Following the release, Peel orchestrated and conducted an orchestra for Weller's 2019 live album Other Aspects: Live at the Royal Festival Hall which featured songs from True Meanings and track by The Jam and The Style Council and from Weller's solo material. She has also orchestrated and conducted for his subsequent records On Sunset, Fat Pop and 66.
After meeting the British artist and filmmaker Jeanie Finlay in 2018, Peel was asked to score her first feature-length documentary film, Game of Thrones: The Last Watch, in which she was nominated for Outstanding Music Composition for a Documentary Series at the Primetime Emmy Awards. Since then, Peel has gone on to score multiple TV shows and films full time.
Radio presenter
Since 2019, Peel has been a weekly presenter on the BBC Radio 3 show Night Tracks.[9] In 2019, she was a guest presenter on BBC 6 Music, filling in for Elbow'sGuy Garvey.[10] Peel has also presented specialist music series Unfinished Symphony for BBC Radio Ulster[11] and in 2024, her first Night Tracks Prom at the BBC Proms.
