Geoff Hannan was born in London, UK, in 1972. He studied composition privately with Michael Finnissy before reading Music at Manchester University where he graduated in 1993.

From the late 1990s through the 2010s he pursued a career as a concert composer. In 1998 he was awarded the Gaudeamusprijs for Rigmarole, his first mature work, and in 2007 the 5th International Marenco Prize for Lifeblood. His music was performed at many festivals in the UK and internationally, including Composer Lab in Dublin, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the London Sinfonietta’s State of the Nation, SOUNDINGS at the Austrian Cultural Forum, the Beijing Modern Music Festival, and broadcast on British, Irish, French and Dutch radio.

During this period his work was performed by, among others, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Skipton Camerata, the London Sinfonietta, IXION, the Ives Ensemble (Netherlands), CONTINUUM (Canada), EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble, Hard Rain Soloist Ensemble and tenor Andrew Staples. In 2019 he was awarded an Ivor Novello Composer Award for Pocket Universe.

Alongside his concert work, Hannan composed music for film and animation including the multi-award-winning Kahanikar (dir. Nandita Jain) and the BAFTA-nominated short film Take Your Partners (dir. Siri Rodnes). He also worked as orchestrator on the feature films Permanência (dir. Leonardo Lacca), and Miss Christina (dir. Alexandru Maftei) which won the Gopo Award for Best Original Music Score.

He no longer pursues concert composing as a professional career. His existing concert catalogue remains represented by Donemus. His current work focusses on independent and direct forms of musical communication, including bespoke songwriting and small-scale collaborative projects outside institutional commissioning frameworks.

Geoff lives in Arizona.

His music is not harmless pastoral panacea or cream cake. It can be a bracing tonic, or open windows onto magical and insane soundscapes — Michael Finnissy