Having begun his film career by writing scores for restored prints of silent films and performing them as a one-man band around the world (including at the Telluride and Avignon festivals), Adrian began writing scores for feature films with his score for Michael Winterbottom’s adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Jude, which starred Christopher Eccleston and Kate Winslet. Since then, Adrian has scored over 30 feature films, including Welcome to Sarajevo, Kinky Boots, Ecosse Films’ Becoming Jane with Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy, Lassie, Brideshead Revisited with Ben Whishaw, Hayley Atwell and Matthew Goode, and the recent cult horror film The Strangers: Prey at Night.

Since his first BAFTA nomination for the BBC television adaptation of Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend, Adrian has also been hugely in demand as a composer for television drama. In 2019, Adrian scored the highly acclaimed Anglo-Japanese co-production Giri/Haji (BBC/Netflix), for which he received his seventh BAFTA nomination. He continues to score the BBC’s much-loved adaptations of the Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling) Strike novels, starring Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger.  

Awards include an Emmy for his score to Charles Sturridge’s mini-series Shackleton, a BAFTA Award and three Royal Television Society awards for his hugely varied work. In different television dramas Adrian's songs have been sung by Charlotte Gainsbourg, Emily Blunt, Wunmi Mosaku, Beth Rowley, Robert Wyatt and Angela Bassett.

Adrian writes, plays, records and mixes in a deconsecrated chapel in the English countryside, 45 minutes from central London.