Hunter Hanson is a composer, songwriter, and music editor based in New York City. He received his bachelor’s in music composition from Northwestern University where he was awarded the Presser Undergraduate Scholar Award for the Bienen School of Music. He went on to receive his master’s in Screen Scoring at NYU Steinhardt where he was awarded the Elmer Bernstein Award in Film Scoring. He is currently an adjunct instructor in the Screen Scoring program at NYU Steinhardt where he teaches composition, contemporary scoring techniques, MIDI and DAW production, and music editing. In addition to his teaching duties, he also coordinates the annual Music and the Moving Image conference.
Hunter’s scoring work (IMDB) focuses on experimenting with new sounds to discover distinct palettes for every collaboration. One such project is the feature film Fidelity (2025) which premiered at the Chelsea Film Festival in New York City. He has also worked as music editor on films such as Little Richard: I Am Everything (2023) and as scoring assistant on projects such as The Fire Inside (2024) (shortlisted for Best Original Score at the 97th Academy Awards), National Geographic's Blink (2024) (for which he also wrote additional music), and Amazon Prime's limited series Bait (2026).
Hunter is a founding member of the band Gregular in which he writes songs and performs guitar, violin, and vocals. Breezeblow, his first solo release, won a Lennon Award in the 2021 John Lennon Songwriting Contest.
Hunter’s concert music includes collaborations with ensembles such as The Fonema Consort, The Crossing, and Bearthoven, an NYC-based new music trio for whom he composed “Decision Fatigue” (“Merit Award” - Tribeca New Music). His scores often combine live electronics and instrumental performance, frequently searching for interplay between pop and classical idioms.
Courses:
MPATC-GE 2049 - Contemporary Scoring Techniques (Lab)