Christian Henson

Christian Henson is a British composer, primarily working on television and film soundtracks. He has also soundtracked video games, and is the co-founder of Spitfire Audio with fellow composer Paul Thomson.^[1] Henson has been nominated for a BAFTA^[2][3] and an Ivor Novello Award for his music.^[4]

Henson is the eldest son of actors Una Stubbs and Nicky Henson.^[5][6] His younger brother Joe Henson is also a composer, as is his half-brother Keaton Henson. His uncle was the farmer and television presenter Joe Henson and Adam Henson is his cousin.^[7] His great-uncle was the cricketer Geoffrey Howard. His great-great-grandfather was Sir Ebenezer Howard, founder of the garden city movement and the first garden cities Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City. His paternal grandfather was the English actor and comedian Leslie Henson, who was perhaps best known for founding the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) during the Second World War.

As a child, Henson acted in the 1980 film Never Never Land. After attending Holland Park Comprehensive in the 1980s,^[8] Henson worked for three years as a baker, with a home studio that he used in his spare time. He suffered a brain haemorrhage at 25, gave up his bakery job and moved into music and voiceover producing and engineering full time, as well as making music for porn videos.^[9]

In the early 1990s, Henson worked on drum and bass and breakbeat music with acts such as LTJ Bukem and the Freestylers.^[3]

From 1997 to 2001, he worked as an assistant for composers Anne Dudley, Harry Gregson-Williams, Rupert Gregson-Williams and Patrick Doyle. Henson cannot read music, and taught himself how to orchestrate soundtracks.^[10][11]

Henson gained a 2007 Ivor Novello Awards nomination for 'Best Original Movie Score' for his work on the 2006 film Severance.^[4] He received 2004 World Soundtrack Awards "Soundtrack Composer of the Year" and "Discovery of the Year" nominations for Les fils du vent.^[12]

Henson was nominated, along with fellow composers Jerry Goldsmith and The Flight (his brother Joe Henson and Alexis Smith), for a BAFTA for the music of the Alien: Isolation video game in 2015.^[2][3][13]

Henson founded the British music technology company Spitfire Audio with fellow composer Paul Thomson in 2007. The company is a producer of musical "virtual instruments", and has collaborated with noted film composer Hans Zimmer, as well as Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Olafur Arnalds, Roger Taylor of Queen, Eric Whitacre, and most recently with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.^[14] In 2018, Henson launched a website called Pianobook, dedicated to creating and sharing sampled instruments for free. It is run by a small group of volunteers, but anyone could share and use sounds, for free.

On 24 February 2023, Henson announced that he would be stepping away from Spitfire Audio following backlash to a tweet supporting Graham Linehan and J. K. Rowling. It was posted on his personal Twitter account, which he temporarily deactivated afterward.^[15] He has since resigned from his position as a director of Spitfire Music Limited, Spitfire Audio UK Limited, and Spitfire Audio Holdings Limited.^[16] In October 2023, Henson returned with a new company called The Crow Hill Company.^[17]

Henson is married to Scottish singer and songwriter Dot Allison. They live in Edinburgh, Scotland.^[7][11]

• 2008 Zubo
• 2013 Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
• 2014 Alien: Isolation

• Christian Henson at IMDb
• Henson on Twitter
• Video of Henson overseeing a real-time recording session in Air Studios for the Tutankhamun soundtrack
  • Gramophone article about the video
• 2017 interview with Henson
• 2018 interview with Henson