Sarah Playford is a London-based composer working across film, television and short form media. Her music is often intimate and emotive, thinking more in terms of textures and colours which often dictate her soundscapes. She is very much at home writing in both dark experimental and lighter string based neoclassical genres.
Her first collaboration with director Jenny Jokela on the short animation Barbeque was selected to be part of Channel 4’s fifth Random Acts series. In 2023 they collaborated on the sequel Sweet Like Lemons which premiered at Annecy International Animation Film Festival and was later longlisted for a BAFTA. In 2021, My Other Suit Is Human was nominated in the category for ‘Best Short Film’ at the IFTA’s, with her score nominated for ‘Best Score’ at the UK’s OXIFF. Sarah’s score to Strength was also nominated for the Peer Raben Music Award by Soundtrack Cologne as part of their 2020 congress. The film received wide recognition in it’s objective to present the various forms of strength seen in women throughout their lives, premiering at Underwire Festival’s ‘Everyday Women Warrior’s’ program and winning the ‘Women’s Rights Award’ at Trés Court Film Festival.
Sarah holds a BA in Music from the University of Bristol and an MComp in Composition for Screen at the Royal College of Music. After graduating, Sarah began her music career working as an additional orchestrator and transcriber for the London Contemporary Orchestra working on a variety of projects from Netflix’s The Forgotten Battle, Call of Duty’s Modern Warfare and Paris Fashion Week. She has since worked independently as sole orchestrator for many prolific composers such as Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch, Lindsay Wright, Aisling Brouwer and Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres.
Sarah has also more recently written additional music for Felicity Morris’ (Don’t F**k With Cats, Tinder Swindler) latest Netflix series American Nightmare alongside BAFTA winning composer Jessica Jones.