John Lunn

John Lunn (born 13 May 1956) is a Scottish composer, known for the music from the series Downton Abbey and for many other television and movie soundtracks.

Early life and education Lunn was born in May 1956. His father was a saxophonist in a jazz band.

Lunn graduated from Glasgow University, where he studied 12-tone techniques. He has cited among his musical influences John Cage, Milton Babbitt, and György Ligeti, as well as Miles Davis. Lunn was also a member of "systems music" band Man Jumping, an early 1980s "jazz-pop-worldbeat fusion ensemble", where he played bass and keyboard.".

He took a short course in computer music at MIT, and assembled his own computerised compositional system, using Cubase software.

Career Television He began composing for BBC Scotland in the late 1980s, with Beatrix: The Early Life of Beatrix Potter (1990) and The Gift (1991). His work also includes music for the television series Hamish Macbeth (1995–1997), Lorna Doone (2000), North Square (2000), Madame Bovary (2000), Cambridge Spies (2003), Bleak House (2005), Hotel Babylon (2006), Little Dorrit (2008), Downton Abbey (2010–2015), Waking the Dead (2011), The White Queen (2013), Shetland (2013), Grantchester (2014), The Last Kingdom (2015), and Belgravia (2020). and Zoë (2000) (shown by Channel 4

Albums published (audio CD) (audio CD)

Awards Lunn has won two Emmy Awards, in 2012 and 2013, both for the Outstanding Music Composition for A Series (Original Dramatic Score), each for an episode of Downton Abbey. He was nominated three other times: Outstanding Music Composition For A Miniseries, Movie Or A Special (Original Dramatic Score) for Little Dorrit in 2009; for Outstanding Music Composition for A Series (Original Dramatic Score), for Downton Abbey, Episode 8 in 2014; and Outstanding Music Composition for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special (Original Dramatic Score) for The White Queen in 2014.

His music for Sky TV's Going Postal was winner of Best TV Score in the 2010 RTS Awards and was nominated for a BAFTA and an Ivor Novello award. The BBC adaptation of Dickens' Little Dorrit was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Outstanding Original Score.