Richard Jacques

Early life

Born in Leamington Spa, England, into a musical family, Jacques was interested in composing from an early age. He wrote his first music achievement, a piano duet, at the age of nine. Richard began studying music at Colchester Institute School of Music and Wells Cathedral School, but he got his primary music education at Royal Academy of Music, where was exposed to a number of instruments and was taught to play in various genres, from jazz to rock. In 1994, Jacques graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Music Composition. Two days after his graduation, he was hired as an in-house composer at Sega Europe.

Career

At Sega Europe, Jacques began by doing soundtracks for a number of Sega Saturn games, most notably jazz, eurodance and powerpop-influenced scores for the Sega Saturn version of Sonic 3D Blast and Sonic R. In 2000, he also created the music and interactive radio system for Metropolis Street Racer, and composed an additional hip-hop tune for Jet Set Radio. Jacques's perhaps best known and acclaimed work at Sega came with 2001's Headhunter. Jacques composed it with London Session Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios, scoring dramatic orchestral pieces. The soundtrack was well received, won awards, was historically performed at first Symphonic Game Music Concert at Leipzig and became popular entry at Video Games Live event. Jacques left Sega Europe shortly after Headhunter's release and became freelancer, but contributed to soundtracks of sequels of Headhunter and Jet Set Radio Future, and still composes for titles in Sonic the Hedgehog series. Aside from composing video game music, Richard also writes pieces for commercials and Video Games Live. He also composed some of the music in the BBC TV gameshow series, Don't Scare The Hare, amongst other shows and films.