Biography

Sam was born in Harrogate on 17th March 1982 and brought up in Wetherby, West Yorkshire. He began playing the piano aged five and singing aged nine. He went to college in Leeds where he began composing music and Musical Directing theatre productions.

In 2000, Sam began studying for a degree in Music at The University of Nottingham. Whilst there he produced a number of concerts of his compositions.  His final year composition, Night Shift, was selected for performance in a professional contemporary music concert.

Sam graduated from university in July 2003 with a First and moved to London in September to start working as film composer George Fenton’s Music Assistant. His duties included archiving and research and copying for films such as Mrs Henderson Presents, Hitch and Bewitched.

In 2005 the London Gay Symphony Orchestra commission Life Among the Lights, which premièred at St John’s Church, Waterloo Road, London.

In 2006 Sam began working solely as a freelance composer. He composed the scores for numerous short films and a feature film (co-composed with his brother, Dan Watts).

He went on to score Planet Earth Diaries, part of the landmark BBC/Discovery Channel series Planet Earth, The Night Whispers and Kingdom of the Dead, part of Big Finish Audio’s Dark Shadows series, the HBO Doucumentary For Neda and the Doctor Who spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures, for which he is currently scoring the fifth series.

Sam has recently finished composing the score for the feature film Stormhouse for Scanner-Rhodes Productions/AV Pictures and has a number of projects lined up including the #twittercomposition.