Hannah Peel

Her most recent album Chalk Hill Blue is a spoken word and electronic music collaboration with the Poet Will Burns. It was released March 2019 on Rivertones.

The album explores one person’s journey to outer space, by recounting the story of an unknown, elderly, pioneering, electronic musical stargazer and her lifelong dream to leave her terraced home in the mining town of Barnsley, South Yorkshire, to see Cassiopeia for herself.

With a posthumous nod to once forgotten pioneering female British electronic artists like Delia Derbyshire and Daphne Oram, and artwork by Grammy award winning designer Jonathan Barnbrook Peel not only quickly sold out of all original pressed vinyl and CD’s but celebrated in her biggest venue to date with a sold out synth and brass band show in the newly refurbished Queen Elizabeth Hall in London.

Recorded live on location in The Barnsley Civic Theatre with Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios team, it features: ‘Tubular Brass’, the top UK championship colliery brass band players, alongside their shuffles, page turns and spit and Peel’s grandfather from 1927 in Manchester Cathedral on one of the first recordings made of a choir boy. All this is combined with the ‘breathing’ nuances of the vintage synthesisers and Peel’s sound designs, making this a wholly unique, collaborative sound and seemingly, a first of its kind both live and on record.

Following the release of Fabricstate, Hannah won a Royal Television Society Award for her title music to Channel 4’s drama ‘Dates’. The track featured, 'Chloe', was individually adapted and rescored for every episode.

In 2019, Peel scored her first feature-length film score to Game of Thrones: The Last Watch (TV Special Documentary).

Mary Casio: Journey to Cassiopeia was nominated for a Northern Ireland Music Prize in 2018 in the best album category.

Particles in Space released in June 2018 is a companion album to Mary Casio: Journey to Cassiopeia. It features 7 collaborations with emerging artists from Northern Ireland, France, Japan and Scotland reworking the original musical stems. All featured artists are engineers, producers and independent artists like Peel, releasing with small independent labels or self-releasing material themselves.

In 2018, Peel composed the title music to the BBC drama 'The A List' produced by Kindle Entertainment. She also wrote the title music and composed additional scores for the Channel 4 / Netflix series 'Kiss Me First'. Also in 2018, Hannah Peel met Paul Weller through producer and co-songwriter Gawain Erland Cooper. She arranged strings and woodwind for his 2018 album True Meanings. Following the release, Peel orchestrated and conducted a small orchestra for his 2019 live album Other Aspects: Live at the Royal Festival Hall which featured songs from True Meanings, The Jam, Style Council and Paul Weller's solo material.

In 2018, Peel composed a score featuring synths, live percussion and drums for a new, theatrical adaptation of Brighton Rock by the Pilot Theatre Company. The production toured the UK between February and May 2018. Also in that year, working primarily on music box, Peel created several hand-punched pieces of music for the score to TeZukA about the life of manga artist Osamu Tezuka by the choreographer and dancer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui.

In 2018, Peel was a featured guest Radio presenter for five weeks on BBC 6 Music, filling in for Elbow's Guy Garvey.

Awake But Always Dreaming was nominated for a Northern Ireland Music Prize in 2017 in the best album category.

Released in 2017 following a 2016 commission to write a piece for Colliery Brass Band and electronics to accompany Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, Peel played with a subtle twist on the current British political landscape and continued her unnerving musical focus with neurology, colliery brass band is mixed with electronic synthesised surges of political detachment enveloping the listener. Much like the miners underground working in the pits with star-like headlamps to light the way, Peel found her light in this quote:

Several other shows took place in the United Kingdom, including performances in July 2017 as part of PRS Foundation's New Music Biennial Festival as part of Hull Capital of culture and at the Southbank Centre in London.

She has released solo records on her own imprint label, My Own Pleasure Records, including Awake but Always Dreaming and Mary Casio: Journey to Cassiopeia / Particles in Space. Awake but Always Dreaming was released by My Own Pleasure Records, on 23 September 2016 and was awarded "#1 Electronic Album of the Year 2016" by Electronic Sound Magazine.

In May 2016, in Manchester, Peel premiered her new analogue synth-based, space-age alter-ego Mary Casio with an experimental piece combining analogue electronics and a 33-piece colliery brass band. The album Mary Casio: Journey to Cassiopeia was released in July 2018.

Released in 2016 ‘Awake But Always Dreaming’(Voted No.1 Album Of the Year in Electronic Sound Magazine) was written in response to Peel witnessing her Grandmother living with a Dementia yet 'awakening' when listening and singing music together. An electronic and cross acoustic album, the track listing follows a cycle of songs about hope, love and affection before entering into the world in which Peel felt her grandmother was living in. Music and sounds are echoed with the loss of communication, short term and eventually long term memory, confusion, disorientation and loneliness. The last track on the album, 'Cars in the Garden' is a cover of The Blue Nile singer Paul Buchanans song from his 2012 solo album Mid Air. Peel created a music box version of the song which she sings with fellow fan of The Blue Nile Hayden Thorpe from the band Wild Beasts.

Peel has spoke frequently across all press and radio on the importance of music and the mind and has featured on panels at Cheltenham Science Festival, Wellcome collection on BBC Radio 6, BBC Radio 4  and BBC Radio 3. In 2016 The Guardian featured Peel in an article entitled 'Awakenings - Hannah Peel on how she harnessed Musics Power to Cut Through Dementia'.

In 2016, Peel composed the music for the TV and online Alzheimers Research UK, Christmas campaign, entitled 'Santa Forgot' made in collaboration with Aardman Animations.

Rebox 2 was released on 20 July 2015, featuring four new music box covers and three new instrumental pieces. A reworking of "Queen" by Perfume Genius begins this seamless 23 minute collection, followed by "Pale Green Ghosts" by John Grant, "Palace" by Wild Beasts and "Heaven How Long" by East India Youth.

In February 2014, Peel released the EP Fabricstate which includes the song "Chloe", as featured in the British television series Dates. The artwork for the album was created by Karborn and designed by Jonathan Barnbrook. In 2013 she won a Royal Television Society Award for Best Title Music for the show Dates.

In 2012, Peel co-composed the music for the Sadler's Wells Theatre production Compass, working alongside filmmaker and visual artist Tal Rosner and collaborating with choreographers from the Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui Company, the Pina Bausch Company, and Jasmin Vardimon. In 2018, Peel was featured on BBC Radio 4 as part of their portrait series.

Peel is well known for fabricating music boxes and composing, recording, and performing with them under the name record titles Rebox. Her music box compositions have been featured on numerous adverts, artist remixes and the 2012 film Anna Karenina featuring Keira Knightley.

Hannah Mary Peel (born 27 August 1985 in Craigavon) is a Northern Irish artist, producer and composer. Peel's solo music is primarily electronic, synthesiser based and often includes classical scoring and sound design, with references to the links between science, nature and music. She has scored music for television, film, theatre and dance, including Game of Thrones: The Last Watch (TV Special Documentary).