Walter Mair

Walter Mair is an Ivor Novello-nominated and Telly Award-winning composer known for his captivating scores ranging from epic orchestrations recorded with 80-piece choirs to intimate, small ensemble and hybrid electronic pieces that have graced a diverse mix of feature films, documentaries, television dramas, narrative-driven interactive entertainment and video games.

Walter scored the 2021 survival thriller Till Death, directed by S.K. Dale and starring Megan Fox, as well as the psychological horror film The Unfamiliar, which won the 2021 Telly Award for Best Original Music and an Award for Best Music Score at the 2020 NOLAHFF, and was described by the press as “the Babadook meets Pet Sematary”. Other recent projects include the coming-of-age drama Iceland is Best and the action-thriller Knuckledust, directed by James Kermack and starring Moe Dunford (Vikings), which won the 2021 Telly Award for Best Original Music.

In 2020, he also received two Telly awards for “Best Original Music” for his scores to the BAFTA “Mobile Game of the Year” Call of Duty: Mobile as well as his score to the Netflix docuseries Formula 1: Drive to Survive which won the Telly Award for Best Original Music, a 2021 BAFTA Award for Best Sound, and topped the Netflix charts globally. Other credits include Academy Award nominee Oliver Hirschbiegel’s International cold war series for Netflix and ZDF, The Same Sky, which premiered at the 2017 Berlin Film Festival, and Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut Lost River starring Saoirse Ronan, Matt Smith, Christina Hendricks, and Eva Mendes.

In the video game space, he scored Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time which won the PlayStation Choice Award 2020 for “Best Video Game” and received several other similar nominations. Forbes said: “Mair’s score uses a ridiculous range of organic and electronic sounds, deriving its unique audio from ‘tons of vintage and analogue effects’, ‘modular synths’ and, er, seashells.”

His music can also be heard in video games such as Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto titles, Sony’s sci-fi franchise Killzone, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction and The Creative Assembly’s Total War series.

Walter believes that the main principle of creativity is to come up with genuine sounds, and he enjoys experimenting and creating unique sonic worlds for each of his projects, using his extensive collection of analog digital synths and blending live orchestral arrangements with experimental post-recording techniques.

In 2006, Walter moved from his native Austria to London to open his own state-of-the-art recording studio in Soho and is a member of both BAFTA and The Ivor’s Academy.

He is co-repped in the US by Gorfaine/Schwartz Agency.