Jane Antonia Cornish

The first woman to win a BAFTA Award for music, and a U.K. Film Council "Breakthrough Brits in Hollywood" designee, composer Jane Antonia Cornish's meditative chamber works have also been met with wide acclaim. She won the BAFTA for best British newcomer for her orchestral score for 2004's Five Children and It. While continuing to write for various television series and films (2013's Highland Park, 2020's The Reagans), Cornish went on to explore themes such as time, silence, nature, and transcendence on albums including her 2014 debut, Duende (featuring the Lee Trio and others), 2017's Into Silence, and her sixth album, 2022's Sierra, which was composed for multiple pianos. From an early age, Cornish took violin, piano, and composition lessons, and by 12, she had written a symphony. At about that time, she was a finalist on violin in the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition. Cornish attended Kent's Folkestone School for Girls. She went on to the Royal Northern College of Music, studying composition with Anthony Gilbert, and earned a master's degree at the Royal College of Music, winning major prizes at the two schools. For the first part of her career, Cornish worked in film and television music departments as well as on works in major classical genres. Her BAFTA Award came in 2005 for the television program Five Children and It. In 2008, Cornish's tone poem Symphony was given a Special Distinction nod by ASCAP's Rudolf Nissim Prize jury.In the 2000s, she did orchestration work on various film scores in both Britain and the U.S., including for Kung Fu Panda (2008). She composed the score for Fireflies in the Garden in 2011. In 2012, Cornish served as arranger and session leader on pop singer Joshua Radin's album Underwater. Released a year later, the comedy-drama Highland Park featured a score by Cornish. In 2014, she began issuing albums under her own name on the Innova label. The first of these was Duende, an album of chamber music featuring the Lee Trio, violinist Miranda Cuckson, pianist Blair McMillen, and others. It was followed by Continuum in 2015, which was performed by the Decoda ensemble. Her next album, 2017's Into Silence, included a title track that was embraced by ballet dancer Ask la Cour Rasmussen, who choreographed a pas de deux to the track for a subsequent tour. The next year's Constellations added electronics to instruments like piano and strings for its cosmic meditations. All the while still contributing to works for the screen (2016's Citizen Jane: Battle for the City, 2017's Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood), Cornish became a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2019. That year, she also released Seascapes, which had its live world premiere at 2019's Chelsea Music Festival. In 2020, Cornish contributed music to the TV miniseries The Reagans, and in 2022, Cantaloupe Music released her sixth album, Sierra. It was written for multiple pianos, all performed on the recording by Vicky Chow. The composer returned in 2023 with tracks including "Lux" and "Wave Cycles" that blended piano, strings, and electronics to longing effect.
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