Jon Opstad

Jon Opstad is a British composer. He is known for his work in scoring television dramas such as Black Mirror, The Woman in White (2018 TV series), The Feed (British TV series) and We Hunt Together (TV series), as well as his music for Ubisoft game Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege, succeeding the game's original composers Paul Haslinger and Ben Frost from Year 3 of the game (2018) onwards.
Opstad studied at University of Cambridge and the National Film and Television School.. In 2014 he was nominated for a British Composer Awards in the "Stage Works" category for his contemporary dance score Ignis. In 2019, his composition "Ignis IV" from Ignis was used as the soundtrack for a trailer for the film Ad Astra (film)|Ad Astra, starring Brad Pitt. The same composition was later used in 2022 in a trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
In 2015 the New York radio show New Sounds (radio program), hosted by John Schaefer, focussed an episode on Opstad's music.
In 2020, Opstad was featured as part of the "Creative Cribs" YouTube series from Spitfire Audio co-founder Christian Henson, exploring the equipment setups of notable film & television composers. In the same year he was interviewed for the "Composer Coffee Break" Youtube series from composer Michael Price (composer), alongside composers Amelia Warner and Oli Julian.
Opstad's music has been featured on radio programmes including on BBC Radio 3 (including Late Junction and In Tune (radio programme), WNYC New Sounds (radio program), Soho Radio and others.
== Film & television work ==
Opstad has created numerous film and television soundtracks over the years. He first gained exposure with his work on Charlie Brooker's cult dystopian anthology series Black Mirror, scoring first the 2013 episode White Bear (Black Mirror), and then returning to score the 2014 feature-length special White Christmas (Black Mirror) starring Jon Hamm & Rafe Spall. Opstad's music for these scores incorporated Synthesizer and electronically-processed acoustic instrumentation and he has described how for White Christmas (Black Mirror) he wanted to give each of the three stories of the episode "a different character musically, but in a way that still gave the score a sense of wholeness and unity". In 2021, Opstad was featured as the answer to a question on the long-running Mastermind (British game show)|Mastermind British TV game show during a specialist round on Black Mirror.
In 2018, Opstad scored the BBC One period drama The Woman in White (2018 TV series), starring Jessie Buckley, Olivia Vinall, Ben Hardy (actor), Dougray Scott, Charles Dance and Art Malik.
Opstad's more recent scoring work includes the hit Netflix documentary series Trainwreck: Woodstock '99 and both seasons of BBC Studios/Showtime crime thriller We Hunt Together.
== Filmography ==
=== Television ===
Year	Title 	Studio 	Notes
2013	Silent Witness (series 16) 	BBC 	co-composed with Sheridan Tongue
2013	White Bear (Black Mirror) 	Channel 4/Netflix 	
2014	White Christmas (Black Mirror)	Channel 4/Netflix 	
2015	Cyberbully 	Channel 4 	
2015	Don't Take My Baby 	BBC 	
2016	The Murder Detectives 	Channel 4 	
2016	Thirteen 	BBC 	
2016	Louis Theroux: Savile 	BBC 	
2017	Safe House (season 2) 	ITV 	
2018	The Woman In White 	BBC 	
2019	The Feed 	Amazon Prime Video	
2020	We Hunt Together 	Alibi 	
2021	Surviving 9/11 	BBC 	
2022	We Hunt Together (season 2) 	Alibi 	
2022	Obi-Wan Kenobi (TV series) 	Disney+ 	(additional music)
2022	Trainwreck: Woodstock '99 	Netflix 	
=== Film ===
Year	Title 	Notes 	
2014	Theeb 	Academy Award Nominee (Best Film Not in the English Language)	(additional music composer)
2014	X+Y 	 	(additional music composer)
2022	Merkel	 	
=== Games ===
Year 	Title 	Studio 	Notes
2018-present	Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege	Ubisoft	composer for new game content since Year 3 of the game
== Discography ==
=== Albums ===
Still Picture (New Canvas Records, 2005)
Interpretations (New Canvas Records, 2007)
Extensions: Music for Computer-Controlled Prepared Piano (Tip Top Recordings, 2022)
=== Singles ===
Blue Sky, White Clouds (Deutsche Grammophon, 2020)
Category:British composers
Category:Cambridge University alumni