Ruth Barrett - Composer Profile

Composer, programmer and instrumentalist, Ruth Barrett has over the last five years amassed an impressive number of cinema and drama credits including scores for Toast, the BBC feature film starring Helena Bonham Carter, Wallander, the BBC detective series starring Kenneth Brannagh, and Harry Brown, the British feature film starring Michael Caine. Ruth's most recent and wildly inventive score has been for the highly anticipated BBC/Cinemax thriller, Hunted starring Melissa George.



Prior to this she scored the gritty and hard-hitting Paul Abbott penned feature thriller Twenty8K with UK producer Jake Gosling.

Ruth scored Wuthering Heights, a two-part Mammoth Screen adaptation of the Emily Bronte novel for ITV/PBS Masterpiece starring Tom Hardy, and The Take, a Company Pictures adaptation of Martina Cole's novel for Sky. She scored Married Single Other for Left Bank Pictures various episodes of Wallander, the Kenneth Brannagh led Swedish detective piece based on the Henning Mankell novels; also for Left Bank Pictures. She also provided additional score for Endgame, directed by Pete Travis. Ruth went on to write additional score for the BBC's The Shadow Line (winner of Ivor Novello award 20012 for best TV music) having scored the gripping ITV drama, Bouquet Of Barbed Wire for Mammoth Screen. Ruth also scored the feature length BBC drama Hancock and Joan, starring Ken Stott as Tony Hancock and Maxine Peake as Joan Le Mesurier. She has composed the music for all series of the hit ITV show, Whitechapel, made by Carnival Films.

Prior to this, she wrote the music for the television dramas What We Did On Our Holiday, starring Pauline Collins, and True Dare Kiss, a six part series for BBC1 starring Paul McGann; alongside writing additional cues for the BBC dramas Oliver Twist (winner of Ivor Novello award 2008) and the Emmy nominated, Sense and Sensibility. Ruth has worked extensively with RTS and Ivor Novello award-winning composer Martin Phipps, writing additional music cues for the BBC adaptations, The Virgin Queen and The Line of Beauty, and the feature films, Pierrepoint and The Flying Scotsman.

Ruth studied composition at The Royal Academy of Music and read music at Cambridge University. She started her career composing for theatre and commercials before setting up a music production company, Rubykon, with composer and engineer Ruskin Williamson. Between them, they have scored numerous documentaries, ad campaigns and short films. Having built up a successful career composing for feature and TV drama, Ruth now focuses her incredible skill upon writing music for film and television.

Feature Film

Television Drama