Grant Kirkhope

Grant Kirkhope (born 10 July 1962) is a British video game music composer, known for writing the soundtracks for numerous games by Rare, such as GoldenEye, Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, Donkey Kong 64, Perfect Dark, Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Viva Pinata, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise and Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.

Grant was brought up in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire and attended King James's School (like his fellow trumpet player and good friend, Simply Red's Tim Kellett). Grant played in various bands after leaving the Royal Northern College of Music, including Zoot and the Roots along with the saxophonist, Snake Davis. Grant also spent many years as part of "the big bad horns" which were part of UK band "Little Angels". At the age of 33 he was employed by Rare. Before joining Rare, in October 1995, he played for two bands called Syar and Maineeaxe where he played guitar, and already knew Robin Beanland, another Rare composer. Grant's music, featuring an electric guitar, is played on an Ernie Ball/Musicman EVH given to him by Eddie Van Halen.

On 14 July 2008, Kirkhope stated in his MySpace blog that he was resigning from Rare. He joined THQ studio Big Huge Games, as audio director.[1]

Big Huge Games was acquired by 38 Studios in May 2009, the company founded by Curt Schilling. Grant went on to compose both the music and sound effects for Big Huge Games's role-playing game Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, which was released in February 2012[2].