Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres

Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres has a talent for reframing her own emotional processing as vivid storytelling experiences in music.  As a BBC R3 “favourite”, she sees merging her film scores and artist work as fundamental to her love of combining sound worlds.  Her bold approach uses unique twists of sound design and recording spaces, away from the conventional, heightening emotions in an original way.

Critiqued to write “arresting compositions that fuse classical instrumentation with electronica” (Uncut Magazine), she won Best Original Feature Film Score in the Music & Sound Awards working with MRI machine sounds for BAFTA Scotland-winning duo Melt the Fly, celebrated as an “evocative score” in Empire Magazine.  Hamilton-Ayres’ “devastatingly emotional” (The Guardian) debut ‘2 Years Stranger’ took us to the hospital bed of her father in a coma, described by BBC Radio 6 Mary Anne Hobbs as “hauntingly beautiful”.  Hamilton-Ayres “spacious and dynamic” (CLASH) second album ‘Play Echoes’, a collaboration on Nils Frahm’s Leiter label, with Her Ensemble at Funkhaus’ iconic Saal 3, said goodbye to her childhood home.  Her forthcoming third full album ‘Lucid Distance’ released with Icelandic label INNI, awarded the prestigious PRS Composer fund, is the first ever music recorded in the European Space Agency’s Large European Acoustic Facility.

In a live setting Hamilton-Ayres improvises based on mood, venue and friends on stage, making each show and tour unique.  Her artist recordings and film scores are no different, standing for a moment in time. Her feature score for BAFTA Breakthrough Paul Sng’s BIFA-longlisted TISH, was celebrated in Screen Daily as “chiming with memories of experiences”.

Hamilton-Ayres’ music has been said to be “worth a second listen” by Mark Kermode.  Hamilton-Ayres has released collaboratively with multiple labels including Nettwerk, Ninja Tune, One Little Independent, Moderna and OPIA, and has continued to explore and challenge her sound working with other artists such as James Heather, Hior Chronik, Mara Simpson and Anna Phoebe.  She has also performed alongside artists such as Talvin Singh OBE, Mara Simpson, and BISHI’s AV installation Reflektions.

Aside from the screen and her live shows as a musician, Hamilton-Ayres has written for national touring circus theatre, opera and dance. Her concert commissions include the National Open Youth Orchestra premiering at the Barbican and DONNE Foundation for the Steinway Series at the Royal Albert Hall.