Gary Yershon

Nominated for an Academy Award and Ivor Novello Award for his score to Mike Leigh’s highly acclaimed Mr Turner, Gary Yershon’s 40-year career as a composer – spanning film, television, theatre and radio – continues to grow and grow to this day.

After reading Music and Drama at Hull University, Gary pursued a parallel career as an actor up until 1991, when he gave up the limelight to focus primarily on composing.

For film, Gary has collaborated extensively with the celebrated director, Mike Leigh. Their first collaboration began in 1999 with Topsy-Turvy, on which Gary was musical director. His first score for Leigh was on the iconic British comedy-drama, Happy-Go-Lucky, followed by Another Year, which gained Gary a nomination as European Film Award Best Composer, the short film A Running Jump, and Peterloo, starring Rory Kinnear and Maxine Peake. Gary’s other recent scores include the film Brighton, directed by Stephen Cookson and the comedy drama 23 Walks for MetFilm.

Gary has also written for TV, where his work ranges from detective drama (Trial and Retribution IX & X) to children’s cartoons (James the Cat, Ebb and Flo).

Many of Gary’s theatre scores are for the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he is an Associate Artist. He has also scored for the National Theatre, the West End and Broadway, where in 2009 he received a Drama Desk nomination for The Norman Conquests.

Gary has written extensively for BBC Radio since 1979, beginning as a singer-songwriter for Radio 4’s Midweek. Since then Gary has composed for many plays, including The Odyssey, Gawain and the Green Knight, The Theban Plays, The Winter’s Tale, The Eve of St Agnes, Three Men in a Boat, as well as the 2002 Sony-award winning Autumn Journal. For Radio 3 he translated and dramatised Pushkin’s Ruslan and Lyudmila, and contributed to The Verb.

Gary curates and presents Oscarⓒ Scores at the Barbican Arts Centre in London. His score for Northern Ballet’s The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas premiered in May 2017. The London Symphony Orchestra premiered Gary’s The Great Blueness at the Barbican concert hall in March 2019. He also works as a writer, translator, musical director and teacher.