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Kirkhope is an Ivor Novello and World Soundtrack Award winning composer, as well as nominations by BAFTA, ASCAP and the IFMCA.

Kirkhope was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He moved to England when he was five where he took up the trumpet at age 6. From there he went on to study at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester where he graduated with a G.R.N.C.M and P.P R.N.C M.

After leaving college in 1984 he played for several bands including, Zoot and the Roots and Little Angels. Little Angels performed as the opening act for Bon Jovi, ZZ Top, Van Halen and Bryan Adams as well as headlining their own shows, they also had a number one album in the UK.

After these bands split up Kirkhope turned to composing and landed a job at the UK company Rare Ltd in 1995. Here he composed the music for several of their best selling games such as, Goldeneye, Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64, Perfect Dark and Viva Pinata. The score for Viva Pinata earned him a BAFTA nomination.

In 2008 he relocated to Baltimore in the USA and worked on Kingdoms of Amalur for Big Huge Games.

After four years there he moved to Los Angeles where he has remained. Here he has worked on Sid Meier's Civilization Beyond Earth, Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse, Ghostbusters and Yooka Laylee to name a few.

Kirkhope was asked to work on the feature film The King's Daughter starring Pierce Brosnan, William Hurt and Kaya Scodelario.

He was asked to compose the score to the game Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, the only western composer to be asked to work on a Mario game. The game came out in 2017 to excellent reviews and he was asked to work on a further addition to the game with The Donkey Kong Adventure.

Takashi Nagasako took over the role of Donkey Kong in 2004 but Kirkhope would still continue voicing Donkey Kong in the Mario vs. Donkey Kong games and the Mario Kart Arcade titles until 2013.

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Grant Kirkhope

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